The Scent of You
by The Cat's Whiskers
Summary: Dean looked at the bathroom door. It wasn’t supposed to be like that, because it was a nice bathroom. Warning: sensitive themes.
1. Chapter 1

_**Disclaimer:** _The TV show _Supernatural_ and all characters therein are owned by assorted Americans, not me. This fiction is purely for the enjoyment of readers; no money is being made. All Original Characters remain the property of Catherine D. Stewart and may not be used without the express permission of the authoress.

**_Summary: _**Dean looked at the bathroom door. It wasn't supposed to be like that, because it was a nice bathroom. **Warning: **sensitive themes.

_**Rating:** _'T'/17. Set post-**Shadows**. **Warning: **Sensitive themes, discussion of controversial subject matter, sexual references. Opinions regarding psychology, religion, and self-harm that some readers may not agree with. Please see **Author's Note** after Epilogue. NB – The locations mentioned herein do exist, but UNT Amarillo and Lake Meredith Hotel are straight from my imagination.

**THE SCENT OF YOU**

Dean looked at the bathroom door.

It wasn't supposed to be like that, because it was a decent bathroom for a hotel; a _nice _bathroom. That was why he'd got them a room here.

Sam had tried to hide it, but having to split from their Dad after Chicago had really hurt him, even though his head knew it was the only thing they could do right now. Sammy was casual and dismissive and full of 'let's chalk this one up to experience and move on' BS, but Dean knew the kid was beating himself up over the fact that his 'Shining' hadn't instantly pegged Meg Masters as Evil Incarnate, about how he'd almost let her persuade him to go to California anyway even though his brother was in danger from a psycho scarecrow/pagan god.

What Dean had splurged on this middle-range hotel room on Lake Meredith in North Texas would have lasted them for over half-a-dozen sleazy fleapit motel rooms, but it had been worth every cent to see the Kodak-moment look on Sammy's face when Dean had chivvied them into the room. A room that smelled like 'Pine Fresh' furniture polish not cigarettes or coke mixed with stale air; carpet with proud fluffy pile not a hard, waxy covering from years of accumulated dirt, grease and spillages compacted down; bedclothes without tears, stains and bullet holes; mattresses that didn't sag, weren't filled with rocks, razor-sharp broken springs and a trillion dead bedbugs; walls that were magnolia white not nicotine yellow.

But the bathroom…Sam had surged into the bathroom like a Great White going in for the kill. The bathroom had a _bath_ and a shower, with different settings and stuff; a proper bath and a proper shower, for grown-ups to stand upright in and without bashing their elbows. It was wide as well as long, and there were big gaps between the toilet and the washbasin and the shower cubicle, not like usually where everything was crammed into one tight corner and you had to stand in the shower to take a leak or wedge your body in the hair's-breadth gap between the toilet and the washbasin sticking out from the wall.

It was a real bathroom, for real people, not a bathroom that only worked if you were six, or short, or Twiggy. Sam had stood in the middle of it and flung out his arms either side without catching his hands on the bathroom walls; he'd twirled completely round like a kid playing spin without cracking any limbs against the shower, sink, john or bath. Even the door had swung open and shut properly and silently, instead of looking like it had been scavenged randomly from a garbage heap and just propped into the opening. There was a real, oiled bolt on the inside instead of a rusted, seized-up immovable lump, or a flimsy, half-hanging-off the screws latch that would flirt off if you so much as farted to let the door spring open and reveal you sat on the john in all your humiliated glory to whoever might happen to be in the bedroom – brothers, chambermaids…

Sammy had grinned. He had grinned _that_ grin, that huge, beaming, 'you're the most wonderful person in the world ever' grin that would have had Dean offering to rearrange the stars in their courses for him if Sammy had wanted. Then he'd shoved Dean out of there, bolted the door and spent the next two hours in the bathroom, singing Country & Western crap as Dean listened and laughed, coming out looking like a human prune. He'd used all the hot water and Dean hadn't minded a bit, even the cold-water shave he'd finally managed to get.

So…the spreading puddle seeping under the bathroom door and ruining the carpet shouldn't be there.

It was a _nice _bathroom, and the door fit properly, without any gaps or cracks.

But the puddle continued to seep, and the carpet was going to be ruined because of the burgundy-black liquid, all sticky and spreading from under the door…

Sam would be angry, because it would spoil the room, and Dean knew he had to clean it up, but his hand didn't lift and grip the knob and turn it and push open the door, even though he told it to. It would be better just to complain to the manager and get them moved to another room – he'd insist on a bigger bathroom; Sam would go for that. But he didn't move to the room phone.

He _had_ to clean up the spill; Sam would be so disappointed if the bathroom was spoiled. So he turned the knob and opened the door and pushed it over the sticky liquid that congealed beneath it.

Sam was seated on the cold tiles of the bathroom floor with his back against the bath side and his knees drawn up to his chest just below his chin with his left arm wrapped around his knees as he stared at the opposite wall.

Dean was a little irritated at the sight. The Glock-17 was his favoured gun and instead of moving it out of the way, Sam was letting it lie there in the palm of his free right hand in the middle of the spillage next to him, where it was getting wet in the congealing liquid.

But Dean couldn't be irritated for more than a second, because Sammy's face was so sad – and he was badly hurt. They would have to go to the hospital straight away because all the back of Sammy's head behind his face was…was…

Sammy continued to stare at the wall; his face wasn't bruised or marked in the slightest which was good because he'd complained he was fed up of always being the one to end up with the black eye or cut cheek or bruised chin; Dean's dings were usually on his body not his face, which meant _he _could still flirt with the ladies but the girls looked askance at you when you looked like you'd gone ten rounds with Ali, even if the wounds were gotten in a good cause. At least that was something Sam could be pleased about, because the doctors would have to really work on where he'd hurt his head, which was…his head was…

GonebloodbrainsonthewalltileflooreverywhereSammysbloodbrainseverywhere

Very, very faintly, Dean was aware of an annoying noise. It was kind of like those old steam kettles you used to use on camp fires, where the spout whistled to let you know the water was boiling. It was a sort of a high-pitched keening sound. It seemed to be coming from somewhere close by but Dean couldn't think where because he doubted very much whether the manager of the Lake Meredith hotel would look kindly on guests using camp fire kettles in their rooms, and besides, who'd want to after paying out for modern comforts? But at least it wasn't bothering Sammy – he just carried on staring at the wall.

He must be mad at Dean for not clearing up the spill before he got back. Maybe if Dean cleaned it up right now Sammy would forgive him and not blank him by just keep staring at the wall. He'd smile at Dean and call him a jerk and they could go down to the bar and cosy up again with the long-legged waitress twins who were UNT Amarillo Seniors?

But Sammy just kept staring at the wall, and that damned annoying keening sound wouldn't stop, and he had to get Sammy to move because the spillage was all underneath him so his pants would be soaked through and ruined – just like his head was…was…

GonebloodbrainsonthewalltileflooreverywhereSammysbloodbrainseverywherebloodbloodSammynoSammynononoSammypleasenodontnoSammypleasepleaseplease

At least his Glock wasn't getting wet anymore now it was in his hand, though the grip was sticky and his palm was all gungy like black-strap molasses. The liquid didn't seem to have seeped into the clip or around the trigger mechanism but Dean should probably clean it to make sure – look after your weapons and they'll look after you, Dad had always said – he'd rigorously cleaned every one of his guns every other night, oiling them and polishing them to keep them in good order. It was a smart routine to get into. But that would have to wait till later – right now Sammy needed him because his head was…

NononoSammywhywhySammySammySammypleasepleaselookatmepleasepleaselooklooklookcauseifyoulookIlldoanythingforyouifyoulookpleasenonononoOhgodSammySammySammySammySammy

Dean was wasting time. He was Sammy's big brother; he was always there to look after him. Sammy was on his own in a strange place, he must be frightened and scared on his own there, wherever he was. Dean would have to go immediately to have his back, 'cause knowing Sammy he'd go and drive the Impala on his own, just 'cause he knew it made Dean crazy.

He had to go to Sammy; Sammy needed his big brother to look out for him…and the Glock would take him straight there. Faster than Concorde, though not even that would have been enough to make him fly, or a top-range Porsche…not that he'd trade the Impala of course…

He had to go to Sammy.

_Continued in Chapter 2…_

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart


	2. Chapter 2

_**Disclaimer, Summary, Rating:** _See Chapter 1.

**THE SCENT OF YOU**

**Chapter 2**

And if he went right now, he wouldn't be able to hear that irritating keening and he would feel better. His chest felt so crushed and heavy and his head was throbbing, like when he'd had a really bad head cold. If he went right now his lungs would stop burning and his throat wouldn't hurt…though they were good hurts because the burning was because he could still smell Sammy, so strong, so everywhere, even though Sammy was…was…

It was a good smell though, not like a 'dude, you need to shower!' smell. Sammy had always smelled good. Though when he had been a baby it had been pale and mingled with baby powder…Dad had always started out complaining that Dean used way too much baby powder but when Dean had changed Sammy's diapers Dad had always been the first to shake out, like, half the tub. But Sammy had gurgled when Dean used to sprinkle his baby tummy with the talcum powder and giggled when Dean had drawn little designs in it with his finger…Sammy had always been ticklish; it was Dean's secret weapon…especially the soles of his feet and each side of his waist just below his ribs.

Sammy's smell hadn't been as faint when he got older, but then it was unsurprising it had become a bit more pungent. When Sammy was little – before first grade when he had started to realise that other people had a mommy instead of a Dean and lived in houses and went to school in the same place for years and years – he had liked the fact that they lived in the woods and mountains, camping out all the time.

Little boys loved dirt and trees and running around playing in the mud and not having to wash behind their ears and keep their fingernails clean – and bathing in ice-cold rivers or strip-washing from the copper boiled over their camp fire didn't impress him. Once a week Dad used to mention that they were getting ripe and Sammy would lead Dean a merry chase through the woods, scampering like a hare from his big brother; Dean would catch him and try to carrying the giggling, wriggling little eel to the river and half the time Sammy would twist and squirm so much that Dean would lose his balance and end up gasping and drenched in the middle of the Spring ice thaw along with Sammy.

As Sammy had got older his smell had become more defined and lingered on things like the ropes and even the cuffs Dad had used when he taught them the rudiments of escapology; although while Dean had never had any problems with handcuffs – give him a paperclip, antenna or something equally handy and there wasn't a lock he couldn't pick in under twenty seconds – he had fared less well with the ropes. But Dad had been exasperated when he'd tied up Sammy and come back growling and stomping and pretending to be the scary monster only to find Sammy had made no move to free himself, and Sammy had been unconcerned because he'd told Dad he just had to wait for Dean to come and free him.

And Dad had been irritated and demanded what he would do if Dean _didn't_ come, and Sammy had looked at Dad with wide, astonished eyes at how weird Daddy could be sometimes and his little piping voice had been baffled as he told Dad just as Dean arrived in the clearing that Dean would _always_ come for him.

ToolatetoolatepleaseSammytakeitbackandIllfindyouIswearIllbeintimepleasepleaseifyoutakeitbackIlldoanythingifyoutakeitbackpleasepleaseSammySammy

Sammy's smell had become richer when he was a little older; when Dean and Dad came back from hunts in the small hours, Dean would lie down wearily in the badly sprung hotel bed or crawl into the boys' tent to his sleeping bag. It was too dark to see anything but a few seconds later close by there would be a smell like a mixture of milky hot chocolate on a cold winter night with a tang of ginger-like spiciness and an increasingly present musk that combined to make a smell that was just Sammy. Then Sammy would wriggle into the bag or under the covers close to Dean and snuggle up under Dean's chin; a little hand would slide up to comb through Dean's hair and within another few seconds the small fingers would still as Sammy went to sleep…

Dean had never had any nightmares on those nights when he fell to sleep himself breathing in his brother's scent…it was a way to ward off nightmares that never failed.

When Dad and Sammy had had that last fight, when Dad had yelled that he would not pay a cent towards Sammy going to college and that Sammy was a deserter and a disgrace to his mother's memory, when Sammy had gone cold and hard and folded his arms and quietly retorted he knew damn well that their Dad would never dream of doing anything that would enable his sons to be _happy_ instead of freaks and that was why he'd worked his ass off in his classes and achieved a full ride – all four years' of study on a full scholarship that paid for his accommodation, his courses, his equipment and even some living expenses – when Dad had recoiled as if slapped and told Sammy that if he went he should stay gone and Sammy had replied "'Works for me'" and came back down the stairs of their rented clapboard house in Wisconsin with his gear already packed and a pre-booked taxi cab waiting to take him to the airport, when he'd walked out the house without a backward glance at Dad or at Dean, when that had happened, Dean had found one of Sammy's T-shirts in the bottom of the wash basket. It hadn't been hard to hide it in his gear, and what was it to anyone that Dean had slept with the rolled up thing on his pillow every night for months and months until Sammy's smell was just wishful thinking.

The room was still full of Sammy…his scent was everywhere, even though Sammy was…not here now…The chocolate-ginger musk surged up into Dean's nostrils and down into his lungs and filled them up but that was okay because he'd never needed to breath air as much as he had had to breathe in Sammy…

The Glock would take him to Sammy…and he closed his eyes and breathed in as much of the Sammy-smell as he could…

Flash behind his eyelids/

And Sammy was holding him tightly and his smell was all around Dean and he was warm and warm and alive and holding Dean and not brain-splattered on the walls and alive and holding Dean and Sammy please thank-you

And there was a flash behind his eyelids as he opened his eyes and Sammy stared at the wall with the back of his head blown apart and he still wouldn't look at Dean or get up and hold him, and Dean needed him to so much.

The Glock would take him to Sammy…

But the only thing he would hit with it dangling from his hand was that ugly 1970s froufrou lamp…which okay, someone should put out of its misery...He lifted the gun slowly and aimed the right end towards his head…but he so wanted to hold on to that wonderful Sammy smell…just once more before…he'd just close his eyes for one second, just to breathe it in just once…

Flash behind his eyelids/

And Sammy was holding him tightly and his smell was all around Dean and he was warm and warm and alive and holding Dean and not brain-splattered on the walls and alive and holding Dean again…so tightly, so real, so wonderfully, miraculously warm.

And there was a flash behind his eyelids as he opened his eyes and Sammy stared at the wall with the back of his head blown apart...

It looked like Dean had better pull the trigger…he must have gone mad…Dean realised that he had probably been insane from when he'd pushed open the bathroom door and Sammy was…

GonebloodbrainssplatteredgonenoSammySammyno…

Butsmellssorealsowarmjustclosemyeyesnotdeadthankyounotdead

He curled his finger round the trigger, but the last thing he wanted to know in this world was Sammy's smell, so he closed his eyes one last time-

Flash behind his eyelids/

And Sammy was holding him tightly and his smell was all around Dean and he was-

Oh…this was going to be a problem. Okay it probably wasn't that big a deal to shoot Sammy again since he was…but…huh.

Sammy was hugging him tightly, his arms wrapped around Dean's back, which was fine – better than fine. Sammy's breathing was rhythmic but kind of hitched like he had just been crying a lot but that was okay too because Dean's face was pressed against Sammy's throat at his shoulder because of those damn three extra inches and that throat was warm and moving. But Sammy was resting his cheek against Dean's own head where it was tucked in Sammy's shoulder; he was rubbing his hair slightly against Dean's own…

But Sammy's head was in the way. If Dean fired the Glock, the bullet would go through Sammy's head before it went through Dean's, and he couldn't swap hands because although his left arm was free his right arm was pinned down by his side from Sammy's embrace and Sammy had his arms round him too tight to let go.

Flash behind his eyelids/

He opened his eyes and Sammy stared at the wall with the back of his head blown away.

Dean looked at Sammy. His eyes were half-closed but without any lustre. They were flat and dull like painted _paper mâché_ in a mannequin's head. There was no living pink to Sammy's skin and…there was no smell of Sammy.

Flash behind his eyelids/

But this time Dean only half-closed his eyes, and even so, Sammy was still holding him. Eternity passed as he listened to Sammy's heart beating through the ear that rested under Sammy's chin, and he considered Sammy sat on the bathroom floor staring at the wall.

Finally he looked in the bathroom mirror and saw Sammy-holding-him's back and his head with that stupid floppy hair and not shattered apart. And reflected in the top-left hand bit of the glass was that nondescript gardener guy from the UNT Amarillo campus, the short, podgy dude who looked like Mr Potato Head, as if something had simply grabbed generic bits of human anatomy like ears, eyes, eyebrows, nose and mouth and stuck them on a blank clay model to make a one-size-fits-all Everyman human face.

Gardener guy was smiling at them, and Dean wondered how he made his eyes glow that bright ruby red…

Sammy was still holding him like he was his long-gone favourite teddy bear Mr Fuzzy, and Sammy was still sat on the bathroom floor with his head blasted away, and the gardener guy's reflection still showed him in the corner, grinning…

But none of that mattered. Sammy was dead…but Sammy was also alive…and now there was a goon standing in the corner of the room grinning like a loon…

Irrelevant…all that mattered was that Sammy needed him…but he didn't know how to choose – dead Sammy or alive Sammy – and what if the creep in the corner was after Sammy…?

Sammy needed him…

And the bang of a gunshot echoed in the room…

_Continued in Chapter 3…_

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart

**Warning: **I do not usually repeat story warnings; I consider such to be unwarranted hubris on my part, and I'm quite sure you, the reader, are capable of thinking for yourself. However, please be aware that subsequent chapters contain issues involving depression, emotional trauma, suicide, plus sexual scenes, references to paedophilia/child pornography, and religiously controversial discussion. Please consider these factors in your decision to continue reading. This is not a story of hugs and puppies, people.


	3. Chapter 3

**Note: **I would like to thank those people who have reviewed Chapters 1 & 2 so positively; these reviews are greatly encouraging, and I thank everyone, such as Dawn N, geminigrl11, HT Marie, Eternal Dragon101, a-blackwinged-bird, kessele, kira and so forth. Normally I personally reply to every review that I can, but at this point I am not up to the task emotionally, so apologies (there is an Author's Note after this story). I look forward to your reviews and will try to post subsequent chapters every couple of days to the best of my ability.

**_Disclaimer, Summary & Rating: _**See Chapter 1.

**THE SCENT OF YOU**

**Chapter 3**

**_One week earlier; Guymon, Oklahoma:_**

Oh.

Sam scowled at the page of the Agatha Christie murder-mystery novel he was reading. He had been sure that she had done it…unfortunately she had just been found skewered to death with a knitting needle.

An inner radar that had nothing to do with any paranormal talent he might have 'pinged' and he looked up as Dean strolled with casual (but what Sam instantly realised was feigned) nonchalance out of the bar. His brother had that smirk which proclaimed he'd won. Ditching the novel, Sam whipped out the closest unabridged Greek classic he had to hand and had it open (albeit upside down) by the time Dean got to the car, where his elder brother made sure Sam got a good view of the wad of cash before he folded it away and slipped it inside the leather jacket he typically wore with the collar turned up.

"Come on," Dean chivvied with a certain urgent undertone, "time to blow this 'burg."

"What, they catch you cheating?" Sam demanded in concern as he got in the passenger side of the Impala hastily and Dean peeled away out of the bar's parking lot as Sam cast wary glances at the Hell's Angels' collection of bikes outside.

"Please, I'm a professional, and I'm good enough not to need to cheat."

"Huh-huh," Sam infused a world of scepticism into his response as he kept his eyes firmly on the rear-view mirror for any glimpse of a horde of mean machines bearing down on them from behind.

"I resent the implication of your grunt," Dean said loftily, "but yes the natives were getting restless. Unfortunately a couple of those bikers tonight were also in that bar in New Mexico last month…you remember?"

"Yeah…?"

"Well one of them was playing poker with the same bunch as me back there," Dean admitted, "and I could see he was starting to recollect how, just like last time…"

"The beer flowed like water but you hardly drank any and that even though you always seemed to lose more hands than you won, _your_ pile of money just kept growing and they didn't realise how much money you'd left with until the next morning when we were two hundred miles away?" Sam recited.

"In a nutshell," Dean concurred. "Fortunately the Hell's Angel currently in charge was still in the _bonhomie_ stage of being drunk so I made my excuses; I think we should put as much distance as we can between us and them before he moves into the '_if it moves, kill it_' range of the inebriated spectrum."

"Works for me," Sam had no problem with _not_ facing a bunch of angry, drunken Hell's Angels.

"Especially as I cleaned them out of the better part of three grand," Dean couldn't help cackling. "So, what direction am I aiming my black beauty in, Sammy?"

"It's Sam, and you've got a choice: a rash of mysterious disappearances in Liberal, or a rash of mysterious deaths around Amarillo."

Dean need consider only a moment. Taking the route from Guymon to Liberal put them on the border of…Kansas, a State of the Union Dean could never be anywhere near with equanimity. But the opposite direction led to Amarillo, Texas, which was a nice two States' distance from the terrible 'K'.

"Amarillo." he decided, turning the Impala onto the main highway and putting his foot down. This late at night State Troopers and Deputy Sheriffs were safely tucked up in beds instead of manning speed traps and if Dean shagged ass they could be in Amarillo by daybreak. "So what's the skinny?"

Having fired up the laptop on battery power, Sammy gave him a rundown. "Over the last nine months nearly a dozen people in the North Texas area around Amarillo have died. Each person got up perfectly normally one day but was found in a state of catatonia by a relative, friend, colleague or classmate later that day."

"Like coma only with their eyes open, right?"

"More or less," Sam scrolled down the page. "Not one person had any external or internal injuries, they tested negative for illegal and legal narcotics, and none of them had any tumours, bacterial or viral infections, but each person was completely unresponsive to the world around them; just kept staring straight ahead into space."

"Yeah, but that could still be medical," Dean frowned. "I mean like that movie with Robin Williams and Robert De Niro, all those people that fell asleep…"

"Doctors tested for that – plus meningitis, encephalitis, you name it." Sam vetoed and then sighed, "And then they killed themselves."

"What?" Dean asked, startled, "I thought you said they were catatonic?"

"They were catatonic." Sam confirmed and précised the timeline. "Found catatonic, rushed into hospital within two hours of being discovered – all of them – given every medical test and exam known to man by the following morning, all of which came back negative, and within 6 to 48 hours of being discovered in their catatonic state, each person committed suicide. Two jumped off roofs, one more slipped into the hospital room of a critically ill patient and downed their treatment drugs. Three were taken back home by their families and killed themselves there…hanging, gunshot, gunshot, jumped off a freeway overpass, slit her wrists, overdose, overdose….and walked out onto the freeway in front of a bus."

"That's…eleven people?"

"Yep," Sam nodded, shutting down the laptop, "and what eyewitnesses to the suicides there were all said the same thing – that they were still doing the blank-eyed zombie thing even as they were offing themselves; said they were like robots."

"Could be voodoo compulsion, a hex or something," mused Dean. "Okay, what commonalities were there between the victims?"

"Only one: they were all connected to the University of North Texas, Amarillo campus."

"That's it?" Dean was surprised. In the same way that serial killers tended to be specific in their choice of victims – such as targeting blondes _or _brunettes but not killing blondes _and_ brunettes or killing whites but not African-Americans – so too most supernatural evil that tried to kill humans tended to target a specific demographic, such as fertility rites that _always_ needed a young female of childbearing age, even if she wasn't a virgin and even though a male counterpart was not always required either.

"That's it." From memory Sam recited the stats, "The eleven victims comprised six women and five men; two were Caucasian, two were Hispanic, one was Caribbean-American, one was African-American, one was Chinese-American, one was Native American, one was Latino, and two were Italian-American."

"So whatever made them kill themselves was Equal-Opps-Evil?"

"Seems like…the youngest was an 18-year-old Freshman male Forensic Anthropology student at UNT, oldest was a 43-year-old female lab tech in the Geology Department. They were all either students, employees, staff or business associates of UNT Amarillo."

"What's the official line?" Dean enquired.

Sam shrugged, "Some sort of mystery virus; that's as far as it's gone and the college isn't exactly pressing for the situation to be high priority given the bad publicity."

_Continued in Chapter 4…_

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart


	4. Chapter 4

_**Disclaimer, Summary & Rating:** _See Chapter 1.

**THE SCENT OF YOU**

**Chapter 4**

It was just gone seven o'clock in the morning when Dean spotted the first billboard advertising the _Lake Meredith Hotel & Spa Experience_ as he headed down Interstate 87.

He glanced across at Sammy, who was asleep and drooling slightly in the passenger seat. In repose, without his usual attitude and sparkle, the pallor of his face and the dark smudges under his eyes were immediately obvious. Chicago had taken a lot out of them all in every way – physically, mentally, emotionally and funny as it sounded, even spiritually. The tentative new accord between John and Sam was only a faint silver lining on the big black cloud, and Dean knew Sam was blaming himself for what he perceived as a personal failure to notice that Meg Masters was Evil with a Capital 'E' and all the accompanying bells, ribbons and whistles. As he had bitterly said, what was the use of having the 'Shining' if it only worked for him intermittently – and with regard to complete strangers – instead of the two people that mattered most?

Typically their usual temporary residences were the sort of motels with semi-burnt out and haphazardly flickering neon signs and which had an hourly rate prominently displayed in the parking lot. Any place pretentious enough to call itself an 'experience' was going to charge a hefty fee…but suddenly Dean didn't care. He was tired and stiff from the driving and saw no reason to keep going just to endure the joys of Amarillo's morning rush hour traffic for the end result of some skid row motel that ought to have been named Ebola Central.

As he approached Dumas there was another prominent and glossy billboard, so he took the Highway 152 exit off I87 determined to persevere no matter far out of the way the place ended up being or how slowly he might have to drive to avoid waking Sam (which would spoil the surprise) but fortunately the freeway he needed, 1913, was the first right and, as promised, it led straight to Lake Meredith.

He pulled into the parking lot noting that the hotel was middle rather than upper-class in style and architecture, which might make the damage to his billfold a little less. It was mainly one of those golf-and-water-sports type places, with the main hotel being a three storey affair complemented by those twee Swiss-style chalet/cabins. However, the prominent amenities boards in the parking lot happily made the point that all facilities – including the heated swimming pool, the Jacuzzis, the spa, steam and sauna rooms and the gym - were included in the room price, along with the full breakfast buffet.

Pulling into the guests' parking lot he slid out of the car as Sammy slept on and went inside, striding confidently up to the concierge and stating that he wanted a twin room with a Lake view for one week. He kept the insouciant smirk on his face as the desk clerk's eyes flicked over his faded black jeans, sneakers, old black Metallica tour T-shirt and his well-worn leather coat – not to mention his leather cord bracelets, the prominent silver-charm-and-leather necklace, the silver rings on his right-hand third finger and the similar silver ring he currently wore around his left thumb – in a manner designed to convey to Dean that the hotel's typical guests wore Gucci and were festooned with so many Tiffany diamonds they sparkled like a disco mirror ball.

Knocking off the attempted supercilious routine, the desk clerk quoted a figure that was impressive, but not as inner-cheek-biting as Dean had inwardly feared, and with a sudden clairvoyance of his own he knew that one of Sam's eleven catatonic-suicides had offed him or herself right here at the Lake Meredith Hotel…which would have been an 'experience' for the rest of the guests. Cue a slight lowering of prices and an increase of perks like 'all amenities included' to pull the punters back in.

Pulling out the wad of cash from his jacket, Dean laid down dead presidents and included a healthy tip just to show he could afford it. Taking the room key and assuring the desk clerk that he and his brother would carry their own bags, Dean went outside to where Sammy, alerted by an inner instinct that warned Dean was not where he should be – i.e., right beside Sam – was stirring to wakefulness and looking around him with puzzlement at the lack of cityscape.

Sam eyed Dean with grumpy disfavour as his brother grabbed their gear and chivvied him towards a _waaaaay _too-expensive looking hotel. Dean was never this chipper until he'd had at least an hour to mainline caffeine but he was grinning like a loon as he herded Sam into the lobby. Automatically taking one of the bags off Dean, Sam obediently followed him to the elevator, aware of the askance glances from the few other guests about at this hour, not to mention the staff…who were wearing actual liveries for crying out loud.

This was _not_ their usual kind of place. Here the men wore pastel pullovers over beige pants or hideously checked golfing attire and looked like middle-management accountants who'd faint from a paper cut, instead of slithering out of tinted-window BMWs with three days worth of stubble, hair slicked back with enough oil to fill a barrel, leather attire as if from a bad bondage movie and Columbia's entire coke production in close proximity to the penis-substitute MP5 'room broom' automatic machine pistol they usually cradled or had 'macho-ly' stuffed down the front of their pants.

Likewise the women were middle-aged mutton, each a walking homage to collagen, plastic surgery and the whole nip-tuck-'n'-thigh-suck culture. Their tans were permanent and even in a manner nature couldn't match, their breasts impossibly pert for a forty-something and if it wasn't Prada, Dolce & Gabbana or Jimmy Choo, they didn't wear it. The females who frequented Sam and Dean's usual motels paid for the rooms by the half-hour and teetered in on four-inch Manolo Blahnik knock-off heels with orange hair, more make-up than a circus clown and wearing nothing other than handkerchiefs with delusions of grandeur.

The desk clerk gave them the evil eye and looked away in embarrassment when Sam smiled directly at him sardonically, knowing what he was thinking. It was true that one of their greatest advantages in throwing interested parties off their track was their lack of strong family resemblance other than their similar-coloured eyes. Sam and his height (thank you, Lord) took after mom's side of the family, while Dean's shorter but stronger (did you have to, Lord?) person came mainly from the Winchesters. A genealogist he'd met at Stanford had explained it was far more common for children to look nothing like either parent but take after a grand or great-grandparent or uncle/aunt. On the sole occasion Sam had got Dad to talk about Before, when he was Normal, it transpired that Sam looked like Mary's mother's father, and Dean looked like John's father's grandfather.

The downside, however, was situations like this when such as the desk clerk made erroneous assumptions about the nature of their 'relationship'. Most of the cesspits where they stayed only cared about the colour of your money and wouldn't bat an eyelid if you cavorted drunkenly naked about the place coked to the eyeballs with a dozen vestal virgins, oiled surfer dude types and a herd of goats, but ironically the more upmarket/pretentious hostelries could be very nasty about what they thought they knew.

"Ta-dah!"

Sam snapped back into it as he realised he'd followed Dean along the third floor corridor all the way to a room that was…nice.

As in the dictionary definition of the word; the old-style meaning of 'pleasant': clean, fresh-smelling and large. The beds were big, with hospital corners, and didn't look like they'd been used by an incontinent elephant every night for the past decade. There was no pervasive odour of urine and other unpleasantness, and the room had a big bay window overlooking the lake instead of hideous nicotine-coated plaster or 1972 bile-green flock wallpaper.

But Sam took all that in with one single glance; dropping his bag on the spot, he marched to the connecting door and shoved it open…and resisted the urge to get down and kiss the tiles.

_Space, the Final Frontier_…anybody over 5' 8" and bigger than a size 6 was familiar with the concept. Sam flung out his arms and twirled around on the bathroom floor tiles in a 'Julie Andrews on the Mountaintop' moment from _The Sound of Music_, chortling when his fingers didn't even come close to brushing the walls.

The bath was deep and long; the shower was large and square with frosted glass walls and not a mould-infested plastic curtain in sight – and the toilet was the other end of the room instead of being crammed into the same corner so close you could shit and shower at the same time. On gleaming glass shelves there were little complementary potions and smellies and a humongous cake of soap that promised to lather up for ever.

Dean was propped against the doorjamb, watching him with a typically big brother 'I'm never going to let you live this down' smirk.

Sam beamed at him and Dean took a step back, raising a hand warningly. "Dude, I'm too cool to cuddle – and I'm armed."

"Do you need to take a leak?" Sam asked, unwittingly echoing the Blackwater Ridge sheriff.

"No…"

"Then go away," Sam declared with a dreamy smile of anticipatory delight, "because I may be quite some time."

Dean chuckled and moved aside as Sam grabbed his holdall from the floor and disappeared back into the bathroom, hearing the bolt shoot firmly into place. There came the loud splashing of bath taps being turned full on and suddenly Sam began to warble in an off-key voice:

"_Hoooome on the range…"_

"Sammy, don't make me shoot you!" Dean called out even as he struggled not to laugh.

"_Wheeere the deeeeer…" _ splash, gurgle, "_'n' thuh an'elope plaaaaay…"_

"Sammy..!" Dean called again, but shook his head, aware he was backing a lost cause.

Splash, splash – big splash like someone getting into a bath – "_Annnd niiiiveruh iz heeeerd…"_

"I'm going to get breakfast!" Dean yelled over the warbling.

"Take a couple of hours! _Ah diiiisscurajin' woooooord…_"

Shaking his head, Dean left the room, ensuring the door was properly locked and hanging on a _Do Not Disturb _sign just in case, even though it was unlikely an enterprising maid would enter the room to be 'disturbed' by the fact that two guests carried an arsenal of assorted weaponry and freaky religious objects around with them.

Dean went down to the breakfast dining room which was situated in a large conservatory overlooking the lake and golf course; he plucked a national newspaper and a regional newspaper from the complementary rows laid out on a side table and took a window seat. At that point there were a few more guests around; there were several middle-aged middle-management couples, a smattering of paunchy mid-life-crisis businessmen with Barbie-clone companions who were either trophy second wives, the girlfriend of the moment or hired for the duration, a few tables of executive golfer thirty-something types all called 'Gerald' and 'Tony' who ate breakfast like it was a competition with a cell phone grafted to an ear, and a few rich kids who looked to be in the same income bracket of Sam's Stanford friend, Rebecca 'my parents live in Paris half the year' Warren.

For a moment Dean had an image of Sam in a double-breasted Rodeo Drive suit and discreetly expensive silk tie, with that floppy flyaway hair of his shorn short-back-and-sides and Jessica Moore Winchester hanging on his arm as the perfect corporate wife with their Prep School _Children of the Corn_ kiddies Brett and Brittany looking up at you from beneath a halo of flaxen hair with homicidal baby-blue eyes. There would have been no room in that white bread world for Samuel Winchester's reprobate brother with his penchant for denim and leather, endless stream of dubious-repute one-night-love-affairs and tendencies towards smart-aleck mouthing off at the Pompous and Self-Important.

Dean would never, ever wish his baby brother pain in any way, but a part of him had to wonder what would have happened had he _not_ swallowed his pride and gone to Sammy for help in finding Dad. It occurred to Dean that the monster that killed Jessica Lee Moore had made the same mistake as it had when it killed Mary Winchester – it would have been far better served in just ignoring Sammy and letting him continue to cut John and Dean out of his life in his pursuit of white-picket-fence normalcy, instead of which it had reaped the whirlwind a second time by provoking Sam towards being the same relentless hunter of itself that it had made John Winchester 22 years before. Power and intelligence were _not_ the same thing and it was a novel theory to consider that the evil which had caused so much harm to their family wasn't the sharpest knife in Hell's hand-basket.

He shook off such musings as a stiff-faced waiter stopped at his table, although without quite managing to pull of that genie-like appearance that you got at the Waldorf Astoria or the Hilton where the wait staff had the ability, like those sub-atomic thingies, protons or whatever, to get from Point A to Point B _without travelling through the intervening space between_.

He wasn't going to turn down any opportunity to get his money's worth out of their stay here, so he ordered the full breakfast without a qualm. The real delight was the coffee: they had such connoisseur wonders as Monsoon, Sumatran Tiger and even the rare Jamaican Blue Mountain. Ordering a large cafétiere of the Blue Mountain, Dean opened the national newspaper first and whiled away a pleasant two hours until mid-morning with the papers and some really great coffee. He even managed to complete one entire crossword and three-quarters of another, a favourite hobby neither his father nor brother knew of – being an _aficionado _of crossword-puzzles was a big no-no in the _Bad Boys & Tough Guys How-To Handbook_.

_Continued in Chapter 5…_

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart


	5. Chapter 5

**_Disclaimer, Summary & Rating: _**See Chapter 1.

**THE SCENT OF YOU**

**Chapter 5**

Finally Dean went back up to their room and entered, whistling to let Sam know it was him. The bathroom door opened in a billow of white steam and Sam came out, barefoot and fastening his jeans with a towel wrapped turban-like around his head. His face and torso were rose-pink and his fingertips were shrivelled from the amount of time he must have been soaking and…

Dean sniffed ostentatiously and recoiled, "Dude, you smell like a N'Orleans bordello; how many different bath salts did you_ use_ for crying out loud? We've got a full week."

"Yeah…" Sam beamed anew at the thought of that bathroom every day.

Passing him to enter the bathroom as his bladder hinted that sorry, but it might have to get rid of some of the caffeine bounty, Dean used one of the towels to wipe the steam from the sink mirror and turned on the sink faucet, which ran for a good minute longer than was good for his bladder and without heating up beyond tepid. Wonderful. But he couldn't really stay mad as he heard Sammy humming wordlessly to himself in the bedroom.

Sticking his head round the door, Dean found that Sam had already dressed in his customary layers – T-shirt, unbuttoned over-shirt and a jacket – and was sitting on the bed putting on his socks. "I'm going to have a _cold _wet shave," Dean mock-groused, "…and breakfast's over, sorry."

Sam shrugged; he'd never had Dean's appetite – or appetites – and wasn't interested. Even Jess used to fuss over how little someone of his height ate, although she couldn't complain about content, since unlike Dean he understood the concept of _salad_, _low-fat _and other dietary goodness. Contrary to what Dean would like to believe, a pot of tar masquerading as coffee and a packet of Oreos did not constitute a nutritious way to start the day.

Fifteen minutes later Dean exited the bathroom and got his usual leather coat from his bed. Sam had already taken the precaution of placing all their hunting accoutrements in one holdall that they took down to the Impala with them for the sake of the cleaning maid's nerves. While Dean had been doing his ablutions, Sam had been doing some more research into the eleven victims and true to Dean's supposition, the tenth had killed himself by walking up to the Lake Meredith Hotel's roof garden and taking a swan dive over the safety balustrade to splatter on the stonework directly in front of the hotel's main entrance to the disconcertion of all present. However the roof garden was only open from 4:00pm daily and so they decided that the risk of being caught picking the door lock to the roof stairway barely four hours after checking in wasn't worth it.

By far the majority of the victims had died within a stone's throw of UNT Amarillo campus. Luckily instead of having to loop back around to the Interstate, Dean could head straight down Highway 136 that went into Amarillo, though it did pass Amarillo International Airport but he could view planes from a distance with equanimity. Inside, Dean admitted that part of him was worried about Sam's reaction. College campuses were a painful reminder to Sam of his loss, but beyond that, Dean saw the wistful expression that often flickered across Sam's face and even though he knew it was irrational, there was a part of him that was convinced if they kept going to too many colleges, one day Sam would decide to stay.

Victim number one had been the 43-year-old lab tech who had overdosed on a chemical concoction she had somehow brewed up in one of the labs and which had been lethal within thirty seconds. The mystery was not her death but how she'd managed it. She'd arrived by car at 7:30am and the campus CCTV cameras showed her walking to the lab and starting to brew the potion – all with characteristically stiff movements, slightly open mouth and vacant stare that proclaimed she was still supposedly 'catatonic'; it was like a lettuce being able to pull off a plan for world domination.

Walking into the main building, Sam and Dean strode purposefully along like they knew where they were going, only stopping to orient themselves when they were in corridors with no other people, and by that method found the science department laboratories, where they entered without challenge.

Fortunately both of them were still of an age where they could pass for college seniors – maybe even juniors – though Sam wondered to himself as they went in what they would have to do once they got too old for that, since he knew that schools and colleges would always provide a lot of business for Hunters like John Winchester and his sons. Young people were like a magnet to evil entities – they radiated vitality and ambition but their confidence was too often not tempered by common sense and they were regrettably imbued with an unwise sense of personal immortality. Added to that they tended to be vulnerable to the overuse of alcohol and drugs and prey to volatile extremes of emotion, all of which reduced their self-control over their own minds and left them vulnerable to being 'psychically carjacked' as it were. The final icing on the cake as far as Evil was concerned was their keen curiosity coupled with a foolish 'modern relativism' scepticism-atheism of anything that couldn't be empirically measured and which left them woefully ill equipped to deal when all that 'paranormal table-knocking silliness' turned out not only to be real but to have fangs, claws and serious homicidal intent.

A definite hum-squawk turned Sam's attention back to where Dean was using his homemade EMF detector – or at least had been about to use it. The brothers exchanged glances and mutually raised eyebrows; they hadn't even done a circuit of the room yet. The EMF detector whined and the needle flicked at the top end of the _Here Be Dragons_ scale. Serious mystical mojo had gone down in this room in the recent past, removing any lingering doubt over whether the catatonia had been medically rather than mystically induced.

They did a circuit of the room anyway just to make sure even though the EMF detector had all the little bulbs lit a steady glowing red and it was making frantic whiny _yim-yim-yim_ sounds as if trying to convey how really, really serious it was that there was funky supernatural badness all around. There was the clack of approaching heels and an Asian-American woman in white lab coat entered the lab as Dean smoothly pocketed the EMF detector, pausing in surprise at the sight of the pair.

"Can I help you?"

"Sorry, wrong place," Dean flashed the woman his 'I'm gorgeous-and-I-know-it' smile, "we're looking for…Home Ec."

The two brothers hastily left, leaving her looking after them, stopping when they turned the corner.

"Home Ec?" Sam snorted derisively.

Dean shrugged but then the EMF detector started up again. "Where are we?"

Ensuring nobody was around to see him checking the map of the campus's layout that, as genuine students they would have known, Sam found it, "Arboretum and Horticulture."

There was virtually nobody about, and nothing menacing other than a verdant lawn and bright flowers and in the distance a short, fat dude in gardening overalls was weeding some flowerbeds. Soporific serenity abounded.

"Well according to this, the azaleas are evil incarnate." Dean held up the EMF detector to show the readings. "Let's see if we can find any more hotspots on campus."

With Dean popping the EMF detector into his coat pocket the two men circumspectly strolled around the campus and though there were areas of absolutely nothing, such as the refectory and sports department, almost every other area had at least one hotspot that sent the EMF detector into frantic _yim-yim_-land.

Finally they used the lunch break end bell to discreetly slip back outside the main entrance. Dean shook his head as he looked at the now quiescent EMF detector, "Well, I'd say that definitively answers whether this is our kinda gig. If there were really such a thing, UNT Amarillo would be built on top of a Hellmouth."

"You watched _**Buffy the Vampire Slayer**…_" Sam paused, "…what am I saying? Sarah Michelle Gellar, of course you watched _Buffy_."

"Actually it was the little redhead," Dean confessed, "she could've put a spell on me anytime…and anyway, that show actually got a hell of a lot – no pun intended - of the technical stuff right, so that makes it educational TV…Dad's buddy Jefferson reckoned they must have had an inside guy."

Rolling his eyes at this smug justification, Sam said, "Well we know inside the campus is a hellish hotspot, but how far do around the grounds does it extend do you think?"

"One way to find out, and we know where to start," Dean patted his pocket and they set off.

Victim number eleven had been spotted walking calmly in the campus grounds, with passers by unaware his frantic family had just discovered him missing at home, and had simply stopped in the middle of the path outside the campus main library. It had a decorative fountain centrepiece out front and two little side gardens of lawn and roses enclosed by miniature privet hedges. Into one of those little lawns the victim had stepped, pulled a snub-nose Derringer from his pocket that he put to his temple and fired in the space of about two seconds before anyone realised what was happening.

Sam and Dean likewise stepped over the miniature little hedge which was neatly trimmed at ankle height. Dean's EMF detector immediately let out a confirmatory squawk, which made the pretty passing co-ed turn and look at them. Unfortunately so did the man mountain she was with, giving them a fuliginous glare. Smiling nervously until the couple went past, Dean slid his hand into his pocket and prudently turned the EMF detector off, as the next Neanderthal might attempt more forceful remonstrance.

The last thing they could afford was to get into a brawl on campus, or arouse suspicion as to how a couple of relatively scrawny guys were able to drop-kick an Incredible Hulk into the middle of next week. When it came to the Winchester family rules, 'Be Inconspicuous' followed right on the heels of the Prime Directive of 'We Do What We Do And Shut Up About It'. Unfortunately that sometimes meant pretending you were a seven-stone weakling and letting the behemoth kick sand in your face.

"Dean…" Sam whispered softly, having crouched down and let his fingers drift over the grass and soil.

Dean also crouched next to his brother and saw what Sam meant. There were ultra fine deposits, as fine as talcum powder, of black and yellow specks on the lawn, soil and flowerbeds. Both brothers knew what that fine powdery residue indicated; the black and yellow were soot and sulphur, by-products of a demonic entity.

"Eleven tremendously different people, all with no connection other than this college," Sam reiterated as they straightened upright again. "What do you think?"

"Right now, nothing," Dean confessed. "I'm baffled."

"Welcome to the club, son." commented a dry voice from behind them.

_Continued in Chapter 6…_

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart


	6. Chapter 6

**_Disclaimer, Summary & Rating: _** See Chapter 1.

**THE SCENT OF YOU**

**Chapter 6**

The speaker was dressed in the uniform of a County Sheriff, and the hood of the car he had his butt perched against as he contemplated them with folded arms was marked as a sheriff's car. He bore a resemblance to Larry Hagman in his **_Dallas_** days, only fatter-faced and without the hat, revealing battleship-grey hair that matched his eyes, which were sharp and assessing.

"Oh, sorry, I hope we aren't disturbing anything…" _in more ways than one. _Sam hastily hopped over the privet hedge back onto the sidewalk followed by Dean, turning his 'sincerity' up to maximum.

"Nope," the sheriff assured them, "though new students sticking their noses into painful Amarillo recent history won't win you –"

Dean opened his mouth to speak and Sam smoothly denied him the chance by stating, "We're not students, we're here investigating the deaths. I'm Sam Winchester; this is my little brother, Dean." He held out his hand with an amiable smile.

As he had expected the tradition of Southern hospitality had the sheriff shaking his hand, "I'm Tom Henson, Amarillo County sheriff. You're Private Eyes…or reporters?" His tone took on an edge.

"No sir, we're here because of our cousin," Sam corrected.

"One o' the victims, huh?"

"No, our cousin, Rosemary – Rosie – she's due to start Amarillo in the Fall as a Freshman and after what's happened…she's their only one and Uncle Matt and Aunt Lucy are worried." Sam related.

"Got kids m'self, I can relate." Henson conceded.

"I'd be happy to let you have Uncle Matt's number," Sam bluffed with an Oscar®-winning verisimilitude of sincerity, "but if so, I'd be obliged if you'd make sure who is on the other end of the phone…if Rosie finds out we're here she'll tear a right strip off us both."

"A sensible man is always scared of his womenfolk," Henson actually smiled, but then asked, "So how are you going to explain away your trip?"

"Uncle Matt asked us to swing by on the QT," Sam continued his prevarication, "so Rosie wouldn't find out. You know what teenagers are like – Rosie's huffing and puffing about how they're being silly and ridiculously overprotective. Uncle Matt knew we'd be around Amarillo for a few weeks so we could see what was going on without rousing Rosie's suspicions."

"You've got jobs in Amarillo?" the sheriff asked more directly.

"For the next week or so, yes," Sam confirmed, "We're hunters."

"Hunters?" Henson stiffened warily.

Sam was aware of the thrumming tension in Dean behind him who had so far been wise enough to stay quiet, but he answered cheerfully, "Well the PC term is Animal Conservation Specialists, but basically yes." Deciding it wouldn't hurt to lay it on a little thicker, Sam expounded, "We deal with everything from a grizzly that gets too fond of your prize calves through a bunch of coyotes decimating your spring lambs to herds of deer ram-raiding your garden to get at your azaleas."

"I thought they were, y'know, protected…?" Henson queried.

Sam nodded affably, "Yes, sir, they are. The first route is to relocate the animals as far away as possible, but unfortunately that doesn't always work. When it comes to remembering, and more importantly finding their way back to, a place where they were able to get a lot of food while being Nature's equivalent of a couch potato, animals are a lot more talented than you'd think. If they keep finding their way back you've got no choice, 'cause no farmer or rancher is going to risk his family or his employees 'gainst a grizzly or a cougar that's lost its fear of man, and if you don't get the shot bang-on first time every time you end up with a wounded animal going on a rampage."

"So they bring fellas' like you in," Henson nodded. "So what do you think you'll be able to find out that, due respect, every law enforcement officer in greater Amarillo couldn't?"

"To be honest, nothing," Sam soothed any injured sense of pride, "but it's worth a few days to give our aunt and uncle peace of mind, especially after what happened with our other cousin – " Sam stopped and made a face as if he'd let slip more than he intended.

"Your cousin was killed on a college campus?" Henson asked solicitously.

Sam sighed deeply and shook his head, the very epitome of embarrassed sorrow. "No sir. Our cousin was also Dean Winchester," he nodded at his brother, "he was an only one too. Aunt Mary died when he was a baby so it was just him and Uncle John and…now, Dean he was always headstrong and a mite wild, but he was a good kid, bright too," Sam said earnestly, "but he got in with the wrong crowd and he was too proud and stubborn to admit what was going on, so he just got dragged deeper into criminality."

"It can happen to anyone," Henson pointed out sympathetically.

"Yeah…" Sam did his best woebegone expression. "Dean was killed when he was 26…he broke into a house and the homeowner shot him."

"I can understand why you'd want to make sure your surviving cousin's okay," Henson conceded.

"Yes, sir; we'll be discreet and keep out of your way," _though not for the reasons you imagine, _"you have my word." Sam assured him.

Sheriff Henson was agreeable and after a further handshake with Sam, got back into his car and drove off. Sam turned around and found his brother's irate face inches from his own.

"Why didn't you just sit him down and tell him our life story!" barked Dean irately. "What did you think you were doing!"

"Saving our asses from the county jail, and keep your voice down," Sam retorted as he began to walk back to the Impala, Dean falling into step beside him. "Tom Henson isn't a time-server counting down to his pension or a politician only focussed on fast-tracking to higher office. He's interested and he cares."

"So?"

"So there's no stone he hasn't left unturned with those eleven deaths. He would have taken all of two minutes to bust any fake ID we cared to show him, and you can bet he's memorised every one of the dead people's files sufficiently to know that none of them have any convenient cousins named Sam and Dean on the horizon."

"And a five minute check of the student roll would show that we weren't new students." Dean begrudgingly admitted. "But that crap about me being your little brother –"

"People equate taller with older," Sam stated, "and it's necessary now that you have that police file. The first thing Henson's going to do when he gets back to the office is look up Sam and Dean Winchester. A dead murder suspect of the same name, who looked exactly like you and with the same birthday would have been too much for him to swallow."

"So this way he buys the namesake cousin story and simply assumes the input clerk got mine and your names the wrong way round when entering our birth dates."

"Exactly," Sam replied. "Humans are very good at rationalising, and since you can't be alive here and dead there at the same time, he'll be willing to accept that explanation."

"Not bad, Sammy," Dean praised sincerely; for all his 'college geek' jibes, Dean knew that he didn't deal well with the 'normal' world and mainstream society.

He was far more at ease in the mystical world of demons and paranormal wackiness than with tax returns, paycheques and nine-to-five…in that way, Sam had always been _Dean's_ bridge and buffer, both his shield and interpreter for a world he often struggled to understand and cope with.

"I'm not just a pretty face."

"I was going to say you're not as dumb as you look."

"Hah-hah," Sam snorted as they reached the Impala and he got in the passenger side, aware there was no chance of driving after that 'little brother' crack, "but actually, once we've left Amarillo and Sheriff Henson is no longer interested in your record, I'll go into the police files and do some creative editing and narrative addition."

"How?" Dean asked suspiciously as he started her up and moved away from the kerb, unsure if he liked the sound of 'creative editing'.

Sam shrugged, "I'll rewrite the official report to read that it was an unknown drifter attacking women in the area who, regrettably, bore a superficial resemblance to the elder son of a vacationing family - and that it was the local news media which wrongly claimed the assailant actually _was_ 'Dean Winchester'. I'll change it to read that that the Winchester family returned home before the perpetrator was shot and killed by Rebecca Warren after he broke into her home and 'at this time the assailant's true identity is unknown'." Sam recited and then brightened as a thought struck him, "What's more it'll act as a deterrent to any reporters or tabloid hacks scratching around, like that National-Enquirer-wannabe 'debunker of the supernatural' idiot who did that website exposé hatchet-job on dad."

"You know about that?" Dean winced.

"Oh yeah," Sam nodded emphatically as he recalled the way his stomach had somersaulted when he'd spotted a student at Stanford looking at the piece – article was too grandiloquent a word - and realised it was about _his_ father. Fortunately 'John' was such a common name that it had never occurred to anyone that there was any connection to normal, boring, Stanford Sam.

"Caleb told Dad to sabotage the article but Dad suggested it was best to leave it out there and ignore it." Dean explained why the offending thing was still in cyberspace.

"Dad was right," Sam told him. "Keep taking the thing down would have aroused interest – and curiosity in what Dad had to hide - if the guy kept reposting his supposed exposé. Leaving it alone and ignoring it means it's just one more bit of hysterical nonsense amongst the thousands of others floating around in the cyber-ether."

"I get that, but I don't see how changing my police record like you said will ward off other reporters digging for a story."

"In a word, bro': lawsuit," Sam smiled. "Years ago reporters who chanced on something had to make a lot of effort to dig up the skinny and the circulation was more limited; these days it's too easy to Yahoo!® or Google® for information but by the same token your libellous verbiage is likely to reach a lot more people – which means that when your victims sue your ass they get proportionally a lot more money out of you."

"Ah…" Dean nodded, beginning to see the light.

"By the time I've done rewriting your record, there won't be a dry eye in the house," Sam promised him, "and it'll send cold shivers down the spine of any nosing-about hack. Innocent, upright young man from clean-cut, all-American family has his photograph splashed over half the State's TV screens and newspaper headlines by irresponsible regional news companies. Family magnanimously decline to pursue damages, but won't be forgiving if someone else starts raking up the muck. With luck, any reporters who stumble across the story and consider digging any deeper will wake up in cold sweats with the words 'punitive damages' echoing in their ears like the wail of Marley's ghost."

Dean chortled, "I love you when you're evil, Sammy…but why not just delete the whole thing?"

"Uh-uh, no way," Sam shook his head vehemently. "These systems are vulnerable because they're _designed_ to allow you to _add_ information and make editorial changes. But, especially after 9/11, I try and erase all evidence of a murder suspect from a law enforcement database and I'll set off every bell and whistle there is going. We'll wake up with the entire Alphabet Soup from Homeland Security through the FBI, CIA, NSA and ATF shoving Dirty Harry Magnums under our noses and displaying a lamentable lack of humour."

Dean nodded acceptance, as Sam was the computer specialist of the family. Dean wasn't as bad as John 'outwitted by a toaster' Winchester but he knew he wasn't up there on the techno-scale of brilliance that Sam was. But then another potential problem occurred to him. "But what if someone suspects the record's been tampered with?"

"It's a risk," Sam admitted, as they pulled up at the stop light, "but not a very likely one, especially since, luckily for us, the case is closed and _solved_. Even if someone actually looks at the paper file and can't find the written 'original' report they're not likely to think anything of it other than 'damn file clerks'."

"And people tend to automatically take whatever the computer's telling them as Gospel," Dean acknowledged as the light changed to green and he drove on.

"Exactly," Sam agreed, "Besides people retire and there's always staff turnover. A busy cop with no time who _might_ glance at a closed-file record in passing is _not_ going to waste time tracking down former input clerks just to find 'the one' who input the report he's reading on his screen a few years back."

Dean nodded but didn't answer as, indicating left, he turned into the quiet suburban street where victim number six had lived and pulled up around the corner in the next turn, which was a small _cul-de-sac_.

Getting out of the Impala they saw that the neighbourhood was mostly deserted. The houses were old two-storey stone built dwellings with front yards full of venerable trees and shrubbery rather than lawns where children could play, and there were no signs of swings and slides and other parental accoutrements. Most of the people in this neighbourhood were childless professional couples who were out working all day and 'networking' at night or affluent retirees who spent half the year on cruise ships in the Caribbean.

As they walked on foot to the sixth victim's house, no curtains twitched or lace nets moved, indicating it was likely everyone was out. Still they walked up the yard like respectable people, and fortunately a large rhododendron bush obscured them from view, enabling them to go around the rear of the house. There was no sign of movement from within, no hint of occupancy, which was what they wanted. Victim Number Six had been one of the gunshot suicides, a childless Amarillo college lecturer, using the handgun her husband had bought her in case of 'home invasion'. Understandably, he'd had a nervous breakdown in the aftermath and was currently at a sanatorium recovering his health.

"Where was it?" Dean asked quietly in the silence of the rear yard; even the birdsong seemed to be a melancholy eulogy to the dead woman – according to the news reports the couple had been childhood sweethearts whose inability to have children had, unlike so many similarly afflicted couples, pulled them together rather than torn them apart.

"Rear bedroom," Sam recalled, grunting in self-disapproval as he put his foot on the trunk of the gnarled, old tree that would be their route to gain illicit entry.

"What?" Dean asked, right behind him.

"This is a flowering dogwood," Sam patted the trunk in apology as he worked his way up to where he could swing from the branch to the balcony of the master bedroom. "They used to be all over the South, but now they're going the way of the American Chestnut."

"With that blight thing? Dad told me once when he was really little, the last American Chestnuts in the Appalachians used to look like snowfall when they blossomed in the Spring," Dean supplied, "but by the time he was five they were all gone."

"Yeah…" Trying to inflict as little damage as possible on the venerable trunk, Sam swung onto the small balcony of the master bedroom, followed a second later by Dean who lithely made the small 'hop' seem effortless.

Dean barely broke stride popping the lock and they went into the bedroom; without pausing they went through into the guest bedroom, because they were not voyeurs or given to gratuitously invading someone's privacy and home for the fun of it.

Someone had given the walls a hasty stark-white repaint that clashed with the softer creams and bronze-browns of the room's original décor. Sam averted his eyes, knowing suddenly _exactly _what the walls had looked like after…he had a sudden flashback to his precognitive vision while trapped in Max Miller's closet, of the deranged boy killing Dean with his own gun…such a small round hole in the centre of Dean's head…such a ghastly spray of blood all over the walls…Sam clenched his teeth and forced down a wave of nausea.

Dean activated the EMF detector and like a singer awaiting their cue, it sounded off, causing them to exchange grim glances.

_Continued in Chapter 7…_

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart


	7. Chapter 7

**_Disclaimer, Summary & Rating: _**See Chapter 1.

**THE SCENT OF YOU**

**Chapter 7**

It was just gone quarter past four o'clock when they went back down into their room at the Lake Meredith Hotel from a quick trip up to the roof garden, having spent the afternoon checking all the suicide locations bar the other two of the three that had died at home, since the victims' families were still in residence; but at each location, the EMF detector had heralded mystical unpleasantness.

Sam shoved the door shut with his boot heel so it clicked firmly. "The question is: what's changed?" he mused. "EMF readings that high and concentrated are either the supernatural equivalent of a violent earthquake or an indicator that whatever's around has been there for a very long time."

"A supernatural 'quake' would have been noticed by someone in our world who would have spread the word," Dean commented as he shucked off his coat and laid it on his bed. "So we're looking at something 'old' rather than 'sudden'."

"But UNT Amarillo's been there for nearly 40 years and before now the closest thing to a violent death on campus was a senior who broke his neck falling down a flight of stairs in 1959. Besides, I did the standard 'what's under your feet check' and the site was nothing but grass until UNT started to build. No Indian massacres or land-theft; no battlefields; never used as a burial ground for criminals or suicides, never used as a meeting place for Ku Klux Klan or pagan covens or the scene of a mass suicide like those crazy cults do." Sam recited. "So what woke it up and made it mad - ?" he broke off and frowned as Dean pulled his T-shirt over his head and unsnapped his jeans. "What are you doing?"

"One of us got no hot water fun today," Dean pointed out, tossing his T-shirt on his bed, "so I'm going to take advantage of all those 'included amenities'." He stepped out of his jeans and pulled on a pair of sweats over his shorts.

"Oh, right." So conditioned to staying in places that started at 'crummy' and went _down_ the scale, Sam had in truth forgotten all about the included-in-the-price goodies, so he likewise put on some work-out gear and sneakers as Dean pulled a gym vest over his bare torso and necklace and pulled on a pair of sneakers instead of his boots and grabbed a holdall for towels and toiletries.

They took the elevator down to the ground floor and walked through to the 'spa-gym' area, which proved to be spacious and well-appointed. Some of the equipment gleamed with the sparkle of new manufacture and Dean would have bet that the owners had pumped in a bit more cash than normal to lure back those put off by the unfortunate spectacle of a man plunging past their room windows to hit the ground like an overripe tomato.

The whole area was open to locally living members and passing trade paying customers as well as hotel guests, but happily whilst there was a respectable smattering of occupants, it wasn't packed solid. As Dean started his warm-up to stretch his muscles Sam noted that most of those present were executive 'dabblers', all with gleaming white Reeboks or Adidas that looked as if they'd just been bought an hour before and brand-name 'work-out wear' in _chic _pastels that looked as if it would disintegrate if anyone was uncouth enough to perspire on it. The others were younger and all of a 'hewn out of a convenient rock face' physique that proclaimed both their goal to be one of those pectoral-flexing hulking _poseurs_ that had plagued California beaches for decades and long-term steroid abuse. There were a few sidelong glances at the brothers' basic, functional attire that Sam simply ignored.

"I'll spot you," Sam offered as Dean moved to the weights area and lay down on the bench.

"Thanks," Dean shifted slightly and nodded to indicate he was going to start.

It wasn't an arduous task as Dean was careful and not in the slightest showing off for Sam or anyone else. Dean's taunt that night at Stanford about Sam being out of shape had been true at the time. During his first Freshman semester at Stanford, Sam had automatically kept up the rigorous PT routine he, Dean and Dad had always maintained without thinking about it, despite all the other million things he had to pack into the day. It was an ingrained survival mechanism. But one day another student had jokingly complained that "'Dude, you work out like you're training for a war,'" and that had stopped Sam in his tracks. He had determinedly left the Winchester family business for a 'normal' life, and normal people did not work out like they were at a Marine boot camp. He'd sensibly stayed in trim, recognising the advantages of being fit and healthy, but then he'd met Jessica and by the time Dean had come back on the scene he was just an averagely healthy guy, whereas at 18 he could have single-handedly annihilated the entire football team without breaking a sweat.

That had been then; during those first few weeks after the Woman in White and Blackwater Ridge he'd not paid much attention. But when it became clear his hopes of quickly finding John Winchester, killing the demon and retreating to Stanford in time for the Fall semester were unlikely to be fulfilled, Sam had gradually started building up his routine again. With what they did and what they faced merely routinely on an average day, not to do so was utter folly.

The muscles of Dean's belly and abdomen bunched and Sam took the barbell's weight from Dean so his brother could sit up, setting it back on its stands. He didn't miss the startled flicker in Dean's eyes and realised that Dean had momentarily forgotten he was there.

Idly Sam wondered how often Dean had done his PT alone. The manner in which he'd mentioned to Sam about working a voodoo gig down in New Orleans had implied that Dean and Dad had begun working alone more often than together, and presumably for sufficient time for Dean to detect nothing unusual with Dad going off on the Hunt he had not returned from, precipitating Dean coming to Stanford. Unlike Sam, Dean would have kept up their intense training regime faithfully regardless of Dad's absence, and Sam found now he disliked the notion of Dean alone in a series of anonymous, seedy gyms, working out with no company or anyone to encourage him.

Dean moved on to the exercise bikes oblivious, but Sam caught the way the guy at the next barbell smiled smugly and continued to work out; the guy obviously thought that Dean had 'given up' in disappointment at not being able to match his efforts or his beefy, sculpted musculature. Sam merely followed his brother, aware that Dean – and pretty soon he himself once again - could have wiped the floor with Mr Smug blindfold, trussed up like a Christmas Turkey and deep frozen; to apply the old innuendo to Hunting, it wasn't size, but what you did with it that counted. Dean would use all the equipment, but wouldn't concentrate on any particular point because that wasn't his intention.

Unlike Mr Smug, his goal was not to be a bulked-up bodybuilder type, those dudes with wasp waists but a neck like a redwood tree and shoulders big enough to land a Boeing 747 on; nor was his aim like that of the yuppie on the next exercise bike along, doing the bare minimum to ensure tight buns, defined thighs and a 'six-pack' for as long as he could before resorting to cosmetic surgery. The Winchester men's lives depended on their being fit, flexible and fast. Even then, the faint scars that adorned Dean's body, and to a lesser extent Sam's, warned that oftentimes 'fast' was only just enough to keep you alive, never mind ahead of the game.

They finished with a few goes on the punch-bag, Dean showing a scientific knowledge of pugilism rather than merely swinging haymakers, but they didn't go into the small boxing ring. From infancy they had been trained to 'spar' as if it were 'real' and hence a Sam-Dean 'friendly' would appear to be a full-on mutual murder attempt by any frightened observers not in the 'know'. Knives, gun-butts, bottles, bats, nails and teeth had all been used with careless abandon when they got carried away, and it was not in either's nature to tone down for 'public consumption'.

They took a rinse-off shower after putting their gym gear into the small washing machine/tumble dryers available in the changing area, and then went to the pool area; again the owners had been sensible enough to realise that spending more on top-range facilities would reap long-term rewards. Dean dived in cleanly at the deep end, but Sam sat on the side and dangled his legs in first, sighing happily when he realised that whoever was in charge understood that 'swimming pool' was not some mysterious code phrase for 'ice bath' and had turned up the temperature accordingly. The swimming pool and surrounding Jacuzzi/Spa pools were unisex but the steam rooms and saunas were strictly separated by sex, indicating that the Scandinavian tradition of nudity within was followed.

Sam lounged at the shallow end while Dean powerfully did length after length. Waiting his chance, he glided lazily forward and sharply tugged Dean's ankle, not enough to drag him fully under the water but enough to jolt him and have him floundering and spluttering whilst Sam hastily swam away fast, aware of the menace behind him. He allowed Dean to corner him at the deep end and laughed as Dean, his eyes gleaming, flicked water into his face with the edge of his ring hand. Relenting on the punishment, Dean backed away and for five minutes they 'raced' each other up and down the pool, nudging, pushing, tugging and shouldering each other at every opportunity, unwittingly resembling a pair of playful seal pups.

A group of college students came in, all perfect teeth, even tans and designer swimwear. More than one of the girls shot flirtatiously appreciative glances their way, which Dean for once seemed oblivious to as he continued to pretend-race with Sam. But seeing a couple of the boys eyeing his and Dean's 'real deal' honed physiques speculatively, and having no intention of allowing their testosterone-overload to ruin the evening by trying to goad him and Dean into a pissing contest, Sam got out at the deep end and went to an unoccupied spa pool, knowing that Dean would promptly follow him. As always, the two brothers subconsciously projected a zone of exclusivity around themselves; they existed complete and fulfilled in a hermetically sealed universe of two binary stars orbiting each other, and so none of the students, either male or female, approached.

They spent ten minutes enjoying the water in companionable silence until Sam realised it was gone half past six. Going back to the changing rooms they showered and dressed, collecting their gym gear from the tumble dryers and taking it back up to their room, where Sam's stomach suddenly rumbled loudly, making Dean chuckle; they went back down to the in-house restaurant where a table for hotel guests was automatically reserved. Glancing at the Maitre D's book, Sam could see even though it was upside down that the place was booked solid well into the night, which boded well for the quality of the food. It was certainly spotlessly clean and tastefully decorated and they had a good table on the _trattoria_ overlooking the lake.

Sam had barely sat down when Dean, without looking, rattled off an order for a bottle of red wine that made the waiter glance at him in respectful surprise and hurry off with alacrity.

Sam stared at his brother in astonishment, since to his knowledge Dean thought 'alcohol' was a synonym of 'beer'. "You ordered _wine_!"

"Yes, Sam, I did…and I can walk and talk at the same time, too." Dean quipped as he picked up his menu.

But Sam caught a _frisson_ of an undercurrent in his voice, and as he picked up his own menu, he realised his thoughtlessly surprised comment had hurt Dean's feelings. He looked at the menu without seeing it as his conscience clipped him round the ear.

In one of the Psych classes he'd taken at Stanford, the professor had stated that any major life change or upheaval had the same effect as bereavement. One common factor was 'perpetual pause'. The human brain was like a video tape – or these days DVD – that 'froze' the person's image and personality at the moment you last saw them until you saw them again and your sensory input allowed you to 'update' their 'file' and move the sequence along.

If someone you loved died or if you didn't see a person for many years, the image stayed stuck where it had been. Even though chronologically time passed and you 'knew' this, your brain couldn't 'update the file'; the professor had admitted scientists did not understand why the human brain – so clever at so much – could not seem to adjust to linear time.

Guiltily, Sam acknowledged to himself that he hadn't updated his concept of 'Dean' hardly at all in the last seven months or so. Or more accurately, he hadn't _bothered_ to, because for the first six months he'd been obstinately and churlishly clinging to an inner mantra of 'if we haven't found dad by the next job…I'm going back to my 'real' life at Stanford', and Dean had been irrelevant in that life.

Dean had been 22, the same age Sam was now, when 18-year-old Sam had had that last terrible fight with Dad and left for Stanford, but Sam was the first to admit that he himself at 22 was so utterly different from the Sam Winchester of 18 as to be complete strangers, yet here he was acting as if Dean was too immature or shallow to be capable of the same personal growth. Using the menu to hide his expression, Sam castigated himself. His first weeks at Stanford had been a seismic shock of 9.9 on the Richter scale that could be summarised in two words: no Dean.

When Sam was small, he couldn't understand why some kids thought he would be upset by their taunting of him having no mommy, because he had a Dean, and they didn't. Sure mommies wore pretty dresses and smiled and smelled nice but they were far too obsessed with dirty fingernails and clean ears and they didn't do cool stuff like teach you to climb trees and ride a bike and build dens and play tag in the forest. At Stanford, Sam had been faced for the first time with just how quintessential Dean was to his and their father's life. Dean had been the one who had breakfast and Dad's coffee waiting and provided schoolbooks and gave new clothes. Dean had been the one who made dinner and did Sammy's homework with him and put him to bed before going back to patiently spend hours with Dad poring over obscure esoteric works and helping him sort chaos into patterns and being a sounding board for ideas and theories.

Achieving a 'full ride' scholarship was excellent, but there were certain things still not covered, and during those whirlwind initial weeks Sam had floundered when food wasn't just 'in' the fridge, when toothpaste and toilet paper ran out in the middle of the night and wasn't replaced, when his clothes stubbornly stayed in the bottom of the laundry hamper instead of appearing washed, ironed and folded on the end of his bed, when he overlaid for classes because he'd been up half the night on his laptop without being reminded of bedtime at a reasonable hour, when he'd kept going into the refectory and automatically buying a latte and a flat black only turn around and find there was no-one there to give the latter to, when he ran out of money and by the third week was living on water and packet soup and sugar cubes scavenged from the refectory.

Or when he'd got a shelf-stacking job to buy food money and those three Sophomore jerks had decided to bully and put the squeeze on the lanky Freshman. They'd cornered him near the Quad and though he'd got a few licks in, they'd triumphed because for the first thirty seconds he'd automatically been waiting for Dean to join the fray and kick their butts into the middle of next week on his behalf.

Fortunately the trio had been kicked out of Stanford when they decided to grab and grope a pretty but diminutive co-ed who turned out to be a Jujitsu master – or mistress – and who annihilated them before marching into the President's office and playing merry hell up. Sam stayed silent but several more Freshman students had come forward complaining of harassment and that had been that.

But it had been the turning point, the final shock which had cemented his realisation that in line with the warning of '_be careful what you wish for, because you might get it_', he was alone, with no resources to fall back other than himself – Dean was no longer there to bail out his butt from whatever stupid scrapes he got into. He had had to adjust to a life of 'I' after always automatically thinking in terms of 'we'.

Sam instantly saw his choice on the menu, but continued to look as if perusing it as he thought about how much he had grown up in those four years, and how he was still half the time condescendingly acting as if Dean were still frozen at 22; yet the evidence that Dean had likewise endured equally as seismic upheavals in the last four years had been smack in front of his face as if writ large in neon, but also manifested in a myriad of more subtle ways.

An 'obvious' change had been the whole Mary Worthington deal. True, Sam's guilt over Jessica's death had prompted his confession that Mary would come after him, but the fact was it had never once occurred to him that _Dean_ would be able to lure Mary, and so he had never given him the chance to volunteer. But four years ago of course, neither Sam nor Dean would have been able to bring Mary back to her mirror.

_A secret where someone died_…apart from that one throwaway remark – 'a voodoo gig in New Orleans' – which told Sam absolutely nothing useful, Dean had been as silent as the proverbial grave about his activities over the last four years – such as when had he and Dad started to work alone more often than together? How many Hunts had Dean done alone? Of most concern, Mary only attacked when the deceased was a _human being_, so who had died and why? Had Dean _killed _someone? Remembering how Dean had way-too-quickly reached his let's-just-kill-Roy/let's-just-kill-Max 'solution' and with a worrying casualness on each occasion, Sam had to admit he wasn't entirely sure he _wanted_ to know the answers.

Much more subtle was that whole Cassie Robinson deal. Now, Sam's stomach twisted as he thought about how he hadn't _cared_ enough to do anything more than take Dean's attitude of flippant insouciance at face value, even when his actions and body language had betrayed how much the opposite was the truth. Indeed, hadn't he acted towards Dean in the same manner, smirking and snickering at the way Dean watched Cassie out of haunted eyes and acted like a cat-on-hot-bricks around her rather than with his usual laidback suavity, instead of doing what Dean had done for him after Jess was killed and encouraging him to talk seriously about how he felt?

He remembered how he'd yelled at Dean over his brother breaking the Winchester family's most stringent rule for a woman he'd self-admittedly dated for only 'a couple of weeks'. Yet even then, Sam knew Dean had been giving off enough of a vibe to make Sam aware of the subtext - if only he'd bothered to look.

That night when Dean hadn't come back to the hotel room, Sam had known instantly why not and where he was. Yet he had lain in bed in a snit, self-righteously impugning Dean's motives as callow and emotionally immature and sanctimoniously decrying his elder brother for being led around by his dick in contrast to Sam and Jessica's 'pure' love.

Inwardly, Sam cringed at his own spite as he recalled only too well how he had railed at Dean for having "'no idea how I feel'" six months after Jess's murder, yet the truth had been staring him in the face had he not been too full of himself to look, because he knew Dean better than anyone, and he should have seen through Dean's devil-may-care attitude to what he was really feeling.

For all his confident practicality and cocky flirtatiousness, Dean was in some ways lacking self-confidence and actually shy…and he would never, ever, under any circumstances, blow the lid on the Winchester family business to a mere short-term 'fling'. Sam swallowed against the bile of self-loathing as he recalled how he had gloated when Dean confessed _she_ had dumped _him_ and how he had taunted Dean about "'you're still in love with her'", but he hadn't been serious because at the time, despite the evidence, Sam _still _hadn't credited Dean with the ability to experience deep and/or complex emotions, pompously confident that Dean was a slave to his gonads. With sudden but complete certainty, Sam knew that Dean had loved Cassie Robinson as deeply and as genuinely as Sam had loved Jessica Lee Moore…and had been desperately, terribly hurt emotionally.

It was so obvious when he bothered to think about it. Dean had told Cassie the truth because he'd fallen for her like the ton of proverbial bricks. For the first time, Dean had taken the risk of letting himself be emotionally exposed and vulnerable to someone in the world _other_ than John and Sam Winchester…and she'd rejected him.

_I know I'm a freak and that sooner or later everyone will leave me_…the shape-shifter must have known about Cassie through its psychic link to Dean, but there was no point mentioning her to his clueless victim 'brother'…Sam had seen how Dean kissed Cassie like a starving dog given _filet mignon_, and far from being Dean just jumping at the chance to get laid, Sam realised that night had meant a lot more to Dean than it had to Cassie, as Dean had proven by his 'never say never' almost-plea to her before he and Sam left Cape Girardeau.

Sam had been raised in the Old School Southern traditions of hospitality, courtesy and respect, where your father was 'Sir' and your mother was not only 'Ma'am' but also the closest thing to a living saint as you were ever likely to meet. Nevertheless, he found himself heartily wishing his paranormal talents included the ability to time travel, so he could send himself back to Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and give sassy Cassie a sound thrashing.

Oh, Sam had no doubt that Cassie had _meant _well. For all his almost comic panting after lush females, Dean was strongly attracted to women who were not just bright, but who were _capable_, as in possessing both intelligence and practicality, and that was the problem.

Intelligence alone wasn't necessarily a stumbling block – it was possible to have an IQ in the stratosphere and possess less common sense than a gnat, but you couldn't have it the other way around, and have sense but be dim. Dean's difficulty was that he fell for women who were brainy _and_ sensible, and that was where it all went horribly wrong.

Sensible women had strong emotions and were just as passionate, but unlike their feebler sisters they ruled their emotions and their hormones, rather than letting their emotions and/or their hormones rule them, and often it took them all of two minutes to recognise the long-term outcomes of a situation.

When Dean had told Cassie the truth (and once she'd got over the whole 'you're lying/insane' deal), her IQ would have considered all the scenarios likely to unfold from what Dean did, and then her common sense would have pointed out the almost-impossibility of her being able to sustain any meaningful long-term relationship with Dean as long as he was a Hunter…and so sensibly she had decided to excise the wound sharply and cleanly rather than let it drag on and fester and end up in an unholy mess a few years down the road that might even involve _kids_ or a divorce.

Despite never seeing the original version Sam could easily replay the scene in his head, especially after having sat in the Impala's driver seat and watched her face as she and Dean took their leave of each other in Cape Girardeau; her attitude had been regretful and her expression melancholy, but there had been no emotional devastation or indeed deep sadness, for she'd already put Dean behind her as a nostalgic interlude, in stark contrast to the raw expression on _Dean's_ face. True, Cassie had certainly not deliberately intended to hurt Dean...

_But she emotionally eviscerated him…hell, if she'd gone Dark Side, grabbed a kitchen knife and physically gutted him from throat to navel she would probably have hurt him **less**_...Shame was a bitter taste in Sam's mouth, _and all I did was stand on the sidelines tossing in snarky comments while he did everything bar get down his knees and beg her to love him…_

Jessica's terrible murder had ripped Sam apart inside until it felt like every internal organ he possessed had been shredded, but one faint comfort he had was that Jess hadn't left him _willingly_, she hadn't left him _voluntarily_. Dean didn't even have that to stop the hurt in the middle of the night when he woke up in bed alone to realise the arms holding him tight were a wishful fantasy.

Dean folded his menu and laid it down on the table and Sam risked a surreptitious glance at him, seeing the tightness around his eyes that lingered still. Part of him wanted to apologise, but he knew Dean enough to know that it would be brushed off with a sarcastic, "'Dude, this is not _Days of Our Lives_.'" As he acknowledged how selfish he had been over these past months, Sam realised that what upset him the most was not just that Dean _accepted_ these casual cruelties from him, but that he accepted them as quite _usual_.

_Samuel John Winchester, you are a petulant brat…if mom walked whole and alive through those restaurant doors right now she'd disown you on the spot and give Dean the biggest cuddle in the world…_

_Continued in Chapter 8…_

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart


	8. Chapter 8

**_Disclaimer, Summary, Rating:_ **See Chapter 1.

**THE SCENT OF YOU**

**Chapter 8**

The respectful waiter was back and hovering; this being Texas, Dean ordered the steak, medium, with the baked potato and mixed vegetables, and the four-cheese & sweet onion sauce. Sam made it two, and as the waiter left he took a small drink of his wine and sighed with deliberate dolefulness.

Irritation flickered across Dean's face, "Sam, just order a beer if you don't like the wine –"

"Are you kidding? This is great…which, is the problem." Sam took another drink.

"And without the cryptic that means?"

"If this gig takes us longer than a week, we're going to suffer a serious lifestyle downturn." Sam complained with a pout, "I'll be scarred for life."

As Sam intended, the comment made Dean smile and those tiny lines in the corners of his eyes crinkled, "You already are…do you really think we'll be here an entire week?" It was a reasonable question, considering most Hunts took them less than three days and usually no more than five, tops.

Sam shrugged, "Well to be honest, I got nothing. Okay, UNT Amarillo is sharing ground rent with Old & Evil, but UNT's been there for forty years and up until now O&E's been content to leave them alone."

"So, why the sudden 'bad hair day'?" Dean summarised as he appreciatively sipped his wine, for some reason not feeling the usual sharp stab because it was Cassie's favourite…one day maybe he'd be able to think of her without wishfully wondering that maybe she'd take him back if he…changed everything that he was, that made him Dean in the first place... _The one thing you can't give up for your heart's desire is your heart_.

"Yeah, and why _those_ eleven people," Sam commented, "Amarillo's got hundreds of students, not to mention faculty, college staff and ancillary workers. Out of all those, why were those eleven specifically targeted out of all the available victims…I mean there were others far more vulnerable and much less likely to be missed…remember those Goths we saw walking down one of the halls?"

Dean nodded, "Yeah, they end up DOA and everyone automatically assumes they OD'd, but not ultra-respectable members of the faculty and the other victims were all Sammy students…"

"What?"

"The kind that should have been throttled by their own halos," Dean taunted.

"Ha-ha." Sam wrinkled his nose at him, then continued, "But how's it choosing them, and why? The only common denominator those eleven people had was that they were affiliated in some way with UNT Amarillo, and that criterion applies to, like, twelve hundred people." He pointed out.

Dean shrugged, "I hear yah…unless it just intends to work its way through the entire campus."

There was a short pause as they looked at each other in sudden fear of ending up with 1200 corpses and no solution. Before Sam could respond, their meals arrived and for several minutes, they gave the food the attention it deserved. As Sam had hoped, the food did live up to the implication of the standing-room-only reservation book. The steaks were thick but tender, the baked potatoes large but with crispy outer skin and fluffy yellow insides that showed they had been slow-cooked in an oven not zapped in a microwave. The cheese and sweet onion sauce came in gravy boats and was thick but smoothly pouring, showing it had been freshly prepared, without the lumps that would have exposed it as the result of desiccated cheese powder whisked with boiling kettle water or the cloggy, gluey consistency that indicated a tin can had just been slopped in a bowl and shoved in a microwave.

"To be honest," Sam paused to take another drink of his wine, "It would be a good idea to email Dad and see if he can suggest any pattern."

"You really think?" Dean's surprise – and pleasure – that _Sam_ had been the one suggesting the contact with Dad caused another stab of guilt in the younger Winchester's gut as he acknowledged how often Dean had been used as the pawn and prize of his and their father's power struggles.

"Remember the Vanir? You said it yourself that for Dad to put together a pattern like that just from poring over obituaries and old newspapers…the man _is_ a master when it comes to Hunting." As always in the Winchester family, that word was capitalised.

"Even more so considering he probably never went near a computer the whole time…" Dean admitted ruefully, "in which case do you think he'll be able to email us back any time soon?"

"Jefferson or Solomon or one of his buddies will do it for him," Sam suggested. "As of right now, I'm stumped as to any other leads."

They finished off the meal and Sam noted with a feeling of mellow contentment that the wine had gone too. He pondered the merits of dessert for all of five seconds until he saw the menu and, in the words of George Bernard Shaw, could resist anything but temptation.

Smiling slightly, he saw Dean's eyes light up in anticipation of the sugar-rush, and directed, "Top left of the menu."

It was perfect for Dean, a chocolate and coffee mousse confection topped with roasted coffee beans and infused with _Cointreau_ liqueur...although the chef had apparently just upended the bottle, since Sam could smell the spirit the other side of the table as he ate his own absolutely delicious lemon tart. Dean savoured every molecule of the dessert as if it were a gastronomic orgasm and eyed the glass dish as if wondering whether he _could_ get away with simply picking it up and licking it out.

"No," drawled Sam authoritatively as Dean leaned back in his chair, all but licking his lips, with the satisfied air of a big old tomcat that's just polished off a salmon fillet, jug of cream _and _your pet canary.

"Hmm?"

"We are not having coffee." Sam vetoed firmly. "When we came in, I saw the cafetieres they've got ready for breakfast. How many did you have?"

Dean pouted, "Just the one…"

"Yeah, just the biggest _one_ you could get." Sam countered, "and I've seen the menu bro', so don't give me any decaf crap…Double-pressed Sumatran Tiger…twice-cold-pressed Jamaican Blue Mountain…I'm cutting you off."

"Its coffee," Dean protested, "I'm not mainlining coke here."

"No but you'll still be bouncing off the walls," Sam retorted, "and _you_ need _your _beauty sleep."

Dean gave him the look that was the equivalent of flipping him the bird but was constrained as the waiter appeared to clear away the detritus. They went back up to their room intending to go back down and try the hotel's casino facilities but Dean surprised both of them by giving massive, jaw-cracking yawn.

"Get some sleep," Sam encouraged, "I'll email Dad."

Again in keeping with the hotel's proclamation of catering to business people (or just as another way to lure back lost custom) their room had high-speed broadband Internet access facilities 'as standard'. Sam set up their laptop on the small circular table which, along with two chairs, was situated in the bedroom's bay window overlooking the lake, while Dean did his ablutions. While the laptop was booting up Sam got up and put the wall lamps on and switched off the central room light so it wouldn't glare straight in Dean's eyes. By the time Dean came out of the bathroom in his usual sleep attire of boxer shorts and customary jewellery – necklace and rings – and climbed into his bed, Sam was online and typing.

"I'm sending everything we know so far, and I'm going to run some searches," Sam said, "see if there's anything I can find in the more obscure sources. I might have to hack into the police system as well…" his voice trailed off as he concentrated, unaware of the endearing way he wrinkled his nose as he peered at the screen because his fringe was getting in his eyes.

_Gonna have to cut that…_ the thought floated through Dean's brain as he felt his eyelids grow heavy and he smirked…it had been years since Sammy had been young enough to let Dean cut his hair…right before he hit puberty and discovered girls…and hair gel and _men's styling_…

_Continued in Chapter 9…_

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart


	9. Chapter 9

**_Disclaimer, Summary, Rating:_ **See Chapter 1.

**THE SCENT OF YOU**

**Chapter 9**

Dean blinked drowsily and slowly flopped over onto his back on autopilot while his brain ran through the who-where-why routine…He must have dozed off for a few minutes there…He squinted slightly because the lights were off but the room was still very bright, but he had an itch…He gave his chest a good scratch, then his belly…what the hell…he shoved his hand down his shorts and…oh yeah, that was the spot…there was no doubt about it, forget cattle prods and red hot slivers under your nails and Chinese water torture and even dentists, the dude who had invented itching powder was the ultimate sadist of all time.

Sam came out of the bathroom looking remarkably perky and fully dressed apart from his jacket and shoes. "Hey..."

"Mmm…what time is it?"

"It's…" Sam checked his wristwatch, "just gone 9:30."

"In the _morning_?" Dean hadn't slept until 9:30am since…since…_never_.

"Yup," Sam confirmed cheerfully, "I was gonna check if you were Velcro'd to that bed."

Dean sat up, Sam's damp hair and ruddy chin from shaving finally impinging on his attention…He felt a pang of anxiety as he realised that Sam had actually run a bath without him hearing him…what if he'd hit his head or something? Although Dean couldn't fully believe he'd actually slept through an entire Sammy splash and caterwauling extravaganza…On second thoughts, Sammy must have eliminated the Tammy Wynette/Dolly Parton covers from his repertoire this a.m. 'cause no way he'd have slept through _that_ din.

Throwing back the covers he got up as Sam went over to the table where the laptop was on again…he needed coffee…even three floors up he could detect the siren scent of the Blue Mountain calling to him…He was distracted as Sam grunted disapprovingly at the sheaf of papers in his hand. "W'sup?"

Sam waved a hand around the pristine walls, "This room."

Dean looked around at it. "What's wrong with it?"

"Dean, when we're on a job, how to do we organise our research and try and see if there's a pattern we can fit together?"

"We just pin stuff to the wa-" Dean stopped. "Oh…"

"Exactly…"

Dean looked around; their normal base of operations on a Hunt was a sleazy motel where 'cleaning service' was a foreign language and where they could pay for a couple of weeks or even month in advance, pin their papers all over the walls (covering them up usually being a vast improvement on the décor), then go out for days at a time and return in the knowledge that nothing would have been touched in the interim. But here the rooms looked like they were cleaned every hour on the hour once the guests were out of the way for the day.

Following Dean's thoughts, Sam was saying, "…I stick this stuff up here and when we get back tonight we're going to find Sheriff Henson and half of Amarillo PD in here waiting for us, to either a) arrest us on eleven counts of homicide, b) act as an escort to the white-coat dudes taking us to the asylum or c) drive us out of town 'cause they think we're some devil-worshipping cultists on a ghoulish tourist trip."

"Let's see what Dad says when he emails us back first; then if we have to we can look for some place to creatively wallpaper." Dean suggested, although he understood Sam's frustration; that old hoary chestnut about a picture being worth a thousand words was true…they worked a lot better when they could spread out all their data and take it all in with one glance as they often paced the motel room, bouncing ideas off each other and able to rearrange bits as the jigsaw came together.

Eschewing a shave, Dean washed and dressed and they went down for breakfast, where they both had eggs, biscuits, sausage and pancakes. Ignoring Sam's amused look, Dean ordered a full cafetiere of the Blue Mountain, raising an eyebrow when Sam hesitated, as if thinking he was going to be allowed to _share_ it, before his baby brother caught the clue bus and ordered a _small_ cafetiere of Sumatran Tiger for himself.

Finishing breakfast, Dean folded the linen napkin neatly and stood up, only to frown in puzzlement as Sam headed outside instead of towards their room, and walked towards the golf clubhouse.

"Come on," Sam urged when he caught up, "It'll be lunch before Dad gets back to us. Let's play a round."

"Of _golf?_" Dean's lip curled in true bad-boy style as Sam pulled out their room key card so they didn't have to pay.

"No, Yahtzee," Sam rolled his eyes. "Of course, golf. Don't worry…I'll teach you how to play…I'm sure you'll pick it up in no time."

Dean knew the faint hint of fraternal doubt in the last bit of the sentence was deliberately infused just to provoke him but he couldn't stop himself being piqued, and so he let Sam grab them each a caddy of clubs and selection of golf balls. He snorted derisively as he looked around the first green; golf was a game for middle-aged business tycoons whose years of corporate raiding and tax evasion had given them ulcers, not out-on-the-edge living large Hunters of the supernatural for cryin' out loud! Had anyone ever seen W. Axl Rose twirling a five-iron or James Hatfield going on about potting a hole in one? No!

"The aim is to get the little white ball into the hole where the flag is; you hit the ball with this stick, called a club," Sam was saying in the sort of tone used to address naughty puppies and not very bright two-year-olds.

"I know what _I'm_ gonna _club_ in a minute," warned Dean.

Sam's tee-off was perfect, and as he intended, his skill at the game rapidly roused Dean's competitive streak and big-brother determination not to be bested by his little brother. One thing about Hunting was that it did wonders in producing lighting reflexes, athletic grace, and superb hand-eye co-ordination, all of which enabled Dean to pick up a lot just from observing the way Sam held the club and swung for the ball.

Of course, Sam kept things interesting by outrageous gamesmanship, such as sniffing loudly just as Dean swung at the fifth hole and making him miss the ball completely, or trying to distract Dean's attention long enough to nudge his own ball into the hole with his foot. Then there was the fact that he had golf balls in his pockets and when he hit one into the rough or a stand of trees he just plucked one from his pocket and strolled back out while Dean diligently worked in the sand-trap to flirt his ball out again.

Finally Dean advanced with narrowed eyes and a low-voiced command, "Empty your pockets."

Having foreseen such a contingency, Sam put his hands in both pockets, palmed the golf balls and then pulled the lining inside out as he lifted his hands, raising his eyebrows at his brother.

Dean bit his lip. "Open your hands…!"

With a dramatic sigh, Sam raised his arms up to shoulder height as if someone were pointing a gun at him, swiftly letting the golf balls slide down his sleeves as he did so and waggling the fingers of his now empty hands. "Are you finished?"

Dean glowered in frustration but then they both ducked instinctively as a golf ball shot between them to ricochet off a couple of tree trunks, and a fat forty-something dude in appalling check trousers and a daffodil yellow sweater trundled up puffing heavily and full of apologies. Unfortunately in ducking Sam had brought his arms down and the golf balls all fell out onto the grass; by the time Dean had soothed the guy and turned back, Sam had smartly legged it for the next green, within clear sight of a group of businessmen whose presence constrained Dean from doling out summary punishment.

Sam wasn't in the slightest bit scared of Dean's whispered threats of retribution, and indeed was highly delighted with the morning as they reached the final green. They had never in their lives _had_ a vacation and you could guarantee any break they did try and take would end up as a busman's holiday. Similarly, the odds of either of them, but especially Dean, ever being able to stay again at a place like the Lake Meredith and enjoy such facilities could be summed up as 'none and falling'.

Sam was determined to take advantage of the closest thing to a real vacation either of them was ever likely to have; as he surreptitiously noted Dean's bright eyes, broad grin and the way his body was as relaxed as Dean ever got, Sam intended to continue squeezing every drop of opportunity from this week to act like normal guys who would go home to the office on Saturday instead of jumping into the Impala and driving to someplace where sentences had a tendency to start along the lines of, 'So, this poltergeist/werewolf/monster/demon/mega-evil…'

"Wow, golf," Dean commented as they headed back to the clubhouse for lunch, "I can see why Dad was worried about you being at college on your own, with such a crazy out-on-the-edge lifestyle. Did you play Whist in the evenings too?"

"Golf wasn't a game at Stanford," Sam admitted, "It was work. Forget the boardroom, most business deals are done and dusted by the eighteenth hole. I learned to play, and learned to know when to win and when to lose." Somewhat sheepishly he confessed, "That law school interview I had - on the Monday? - was pretty much a cosmetic formality. I did the real interview the Sunday before on the fairway."

"So those guys who worked their asses off but never took up golf ended up as the mailroom boy and the frat boys who never opened a textbook but who could shoot the birdie over the par or whatever ended up as Vice-Chairman of the Board on their second day?" challenged Dean. "And you dare to go on about how our world is warped and twisted?"

Sam had no answer – it was certainly something he wasn't proud of, but it was the way the world worked; in another universe Dean had never come, and he had attended his law school interview successfully, gotten engaged to Jessica and booked Stanford's famous Memorial Church, affectionately known as MemChu, for their wedding, wrapped up in his normal, safe life.

_Continued in Chapter 10…_

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart


	10. Chapter 10

**_Disclaimer, Summary, Rating:_ **See Chapter 1.

**THE SCENT OF YOU**

**Chapter 10**

After lunch they went back to their room where Sam retrieved the laptop and all their research papers plus the guns and knives they had on them instead of stored with everything else in the Impala's trunk from the room's small safe. It was a precaution they took daily, not just because of the monetary/saleable value of the laptop and such as the Infra-red Thermal Scanner to opportunistic thieves/druggies looking for something to sell for their next fix, but mostly just in case any cleaning staff did have an over-developed sense of curiosity and peeked into their holdalls. Coming face to face with a large ceremonial dagger etched with runes or a badass Glock-17 and a bunch of paper sheets crammed with occult information about mayhem and violent death tended to get people over-excited.

Booting up the laptop at the table again, Sam went to his email account and as he hoped, found a new email from somebody called with an attachment. "Who's Suki?"

Looking over his shoulder, Dean shook his head, "No idea."

Sam opened the email, unsurprised that a stranger should be responding. One of Dad's closest friends was Amoa M'Natu, a man whom he had never actually met 'in the flesh' though they 'saw' each other every other week or so by virtue of modern technology, because Amoa was a priest-hunter in Senegal. Sam still remembered their Dad's almost childlike awe of the 'webcam' setup. Theirs was a widely-scattered but intensely close-knit world; the psychobabblers would probably term it 'not just a closed society, but a locked and bolted one'.

Few of them had material wealth, and everyone just held everything in common, which was freely offered to another as needed. The toaster-killers like John Winchester could thus rely on the technophiles of their society to help out, even if the person was a stranger to them. As Pastor Jim had once lamented, if the 'normal' world practised such generous co-operation and kindness to strangers, there probably would hardly be a need for _their_ kind to exist to protect it.

_Hi Deen & Sam_

_You're dad asked me to send you this attachments He says:_

_I have looked at what you sent me. Your research is excellent; well done both of you. Right now I'm as baffled as Sam, though. I have attached some research I came across in the past, but to be honest I don't know how relevant or useful it will be. The victims seem to be entirely random other than the pattern you have already found, viz., that they are all connected to UNT Amarillo. The only other pattern I have been able to determine is that all the victims were connected, albeit in some cases tangentially, with the Earth, as in the literal rock all six billion of us are standing on. I will mull it over and if I think of anything else I'll get back to you as soon as I can but I'll be incommunicado for a couple of days; Jefferson called last night because there's something nasty kicking off in Minnesota. Be careful. Dad._

_I am hoping my attachments come thru OK. You're problem not my area of specialness but if I can help be glad to. Stay safe Winchesters. Suki._

Before he opened the attachments, Sam sent a brief, simple thank-you response. The grammar and syntax of the opening and closing paragraphs indicated English was not 'Suki's' native language, whereas the main message had clearly been written – or more likely carefully dictated since John Winchester was as lethal to keyboards as he was to toasters – by their Dad.

Since they couldn't pin and pace, Dean pulled the other chair around the table with what printed-out/handwritten information they had while Sam used the laptop.

"What'd he mean, 'connected to the Earth'?" Sam mumbled.

"Let's go through the victims again. Do a chart or a graph or something," Dean instructed with a nod at the laptop. Shuffling the sheet of papers, he read out the first victim's details while Sam quickly made a grid and typed, "Victim One, female, the Caribbean-American. Divorced, two children aged 24 and 23, both of whom live in Boston. Forty-three years old, a lab tech at UNT Amarillo, catatonic for…15 hours, committed suicide by drinking a chemical cocktail of poison."

"What Department of the college?" asked Sam.

"Um…Geology & Earth Sciences." Dean recited.

"Right; next one?"

"Victim Number Two, male, 57 years old, one of the two Hispanics…three grown up children, three grandchildren, widowed five years ago." Dean carefully did not use either of the victims' names, as there was always a sense of guilt in failing to save a life, even if you knew you would prevent further deaths – after all, that fact was cold comfort to the bereaved. It was easier to keep it impersonal. "One of the two who overdosed; downed enough pills and booze to wipe out the 101st Airborne and was found in his armchair. He was…Senior Lecturer in Sophomore Biochemistry."

They worked their way through the details of all eleven victims, with Sam inputting each person's information into the chart as Dean read out the particulars.

"What have we got?" Dean shifted to ease his butt, which had gone numb from sitting.

"No victims from English Language or Literature, Mathematics, Education & Teaching, Computer Sciences, Modern or Ancient Languages, Philosophy, Classical Studies, Home Economics, Sports, the Arts Department – or the Religious Education Department, not surprisingly," Sam reeled off. "Let me print it…"

Their small, portable and mercifully non-temperamental printer clattered and churned out a letter-sized sheet. UNT Amarillo was comprised of various in-house Departments, externally-affiliated Schools and 'partnership' run Academies. The eleven victims had comprised three faculty, two undergraduate students, one postgraduate student, three researchers and two technician staff. One victim had been from Geology & Earth Sciences, one from Biochemistry, one from Archaeology & Anthropology, two from Zoology & Natural Sciences, two from Environmental & Conservation Studies, and two from Arboriculture & Horticulture.

Sam sucked his lower lip as they perused the list. "Well…everything in the universe is made up from the basic elements. Me, you and this table are all made of the same chemical and mineral compounds, just arranged in different ways…and if you make that crack about my head also being made of wood, I'll smack you."

"You and what Army, _baby_ bro'?" Dean retorted with a smirk but refocused on the serious discussion at hand. "So, we are all 'star-stuff'. Don't see how that helps us…I mean, how is Archaeology 'connected to the Earth', other than that Archaeology is a fancy term for grave-robbing?"

"I don't know…and archaeologists would say they're just trying to learn from the past."

"Well they don't seem to get a clue," Dean snorted, "I mean, how many _Indiana Jones_ movies do Ford, Spielberg & Lucas need to make to get the point across? When you find something that ancient peoples buried under a ton of stone and booby-trapped to the hilt doesn't it kinda hint that they knew what they were doing and that therefore digging the friggin' thing up is really dumb?"

"Why do I get the feeling I'm listening to the voice of experience?"

"Florida," admitted Dean. "I'm out in the Everglades, trying to deal with this seriously badass mutant alligator monster, when I had to bail out the Nutty Professor and a bunch of hippie-throwback dig students who ignored all the warning sigils and emblems to unleash the chomp thing. Damn thing had more teeth on show than an Osmond family reunion."

"How'd you kill it?" asked Sam with concern, noting the singular personal pronoun of 'I' rather than 'we' or 'me and Dad'; undoubtedly another solo gig of Dean's.

"I didn't. Mutant reptile was hot on my trail and I couldn't fight both of 'em. Come sundown it would've have been a slaughterhouse, so I did my drill sergeant routine and sent the Prof and his people back to Lake Okeechobee with their tails between their legs at high speed. I knew if I could keep the chomp thing at bay until Reptile Boy showed up they would more'n likely slice 'n' dice each other and I could just mop up." Dean related with the casual air of one relating a minor irritant.

_You mean you hoped like hell that they would take each other out but had no idea whether they'd team up against you instead_, Sam mentally translated the flippant anecdote…_You were alone and terrified in the dark knowing there was a good chance you could be dead or wishing you were about five minutes after sunset…Damn it Dean, haven't you heard the one about being a live dog instead of a dead lion?_

"I think we need to go back to UNT Amarillo and check it out more thoroughly," Sam said aloud, keeping his thoughts off his face.

Dean checked his wristwatch, "It's two-thirty…that's doable."

Not needing to think about what they required for such a sneak 'n' peek, they were on the road to Amarillo less than five minutes later; traffic was reasonably light and Dean pulled into the campus grounds, deliberately choosing the most inconspicuous parking bay he could find. Since the first victim had been a lab tech in the Earth Sciences Department, they made their way there; with Sam keeping watch, Dean quickly picked the lock on a deserted science lab and got them in. Going into the little staff office, Sam found what he was looking for – a little wall plan showing the staff's workstations…and the staff laboratory was right next door. The staff office acted as a connecting room between the two labs and it was the work of a moment to go into the next lab.

There were workbenches full of Bunsen burners and flasks, some seriously state-of-the-art computer equipment and floor to ceiling drawers neatly labelled with what they contained and the staff member currently working on them.

Taking the EMF detector out of his pocket, Dean turned it on – and promptly dropped it as it 'shrieked' and all the little bulbs blew out. Hastily scrabbling for it he turned it back off again and they stood tensely, but there was no commotion. Going to a vertical row of drawers that had 'Yolande Godfrey' handwritten on them, Sam carefully pulled each one open, ready for anything. There were a variety of mineral samples, mostly fossilised Trilobites and the like, but nothing to get…

Instinctively both men jumped back from the drawer; nothing happened and so with mutual deep breaths and nervous glances, they peered in. The object was the size and roughly the shape of a football. It was a dull, non-reflective black and there were almost faint patterns on it, similar to a fossil, but not. There were also faint marks where samples must have been taken for analysis. It looked utterly unimportant and innocuous, yet just looking at it made Sam's stomach lurch.

Next to the Glock-17 tucked in the back of his waistband, Dean carried a medium-sized serrated hunting knife, being of the school of thought that it was impossible to ever carry too much weaponry. Pulling it out he measured and carefully rapped the handle on the corner of the object, making a small pea-sized chunk break off. Inside the object was grainy but solid black, with a faint tinge of yellow. Getting a small test tube, Sam used a pair of tweezers – nothing would have induced him to touch it – and placed the sample in the test-tube. He was sure Mrs Godfrey had run a spectrum analysis on whatever it was, but if they were unable to find or access her work, they would have to run their own tests. Sam had a pretty good idea already of what that faint yellow tinge might be. As if reading his mind, Dean brought out the plastic bottle of Holy Water they carried and carefully flicked a few drops onto the 'rock' – whereupon it immediately began to smoke.

Leaving the lab undetected, they followed the wall plan to where the Archaeology victim had had his office, ensuring that they kept to side corridors as much as possible and striding out purposefully when they passed anyone as if they had every right to be here. Once again, Dean picked the lock to the guy's office and had them inside within ten seconds.

"Pay dirt," declared Sam as he checked the desk and hefted a brown cardboard folder crammed with papers. He checked them, "The archaeologist was collating all the data their research produced on the Satanic football …or whatever it is…" he pulled off one of those Post-It® Notes and read it. "Everything they know is in this file except for…Biochemical spectral analysis report number…blah, blah…"

"Which is where?" demanded Dean.

"The Senior Lecturer has it – had it – on his computer in his student-lecture laboratory," Sam finished reading, "which is…the end of this corridor, left, right and at the end of the hallway."

Putting an elastic band around the folder, he shoved it into the backpack he'd brought with him to foster the 'student' air and they left, with Dean relocking the office as they went – actually not as easy as picking the lock. An office that was still locked didn't make people start thinking deep thoughts about the police and fingerprint dusting.

The Biochemistry 'lab' was similarly kitted out with Mad Scientist paraphernalia and techno-geek hardware heaven. Unlike several of the other labs, it also had a door the top half of which was a rectangular clear-glass pane. Dean kept watch while Sam booted up the computer on the lecturer's desk and began to search.

"Found it." Sam said finally, turning on the printer so he could print the report. "Ugh, twenty pages. It's going to take forever to read through everything."

Dean didn't answer as he kept his eye on the corridor while the colour printer whirred and clacked and spat out pages. Fortunately nobody came down the corridor but as his hand brushed the doorknob Dean felt a faint vibration through it. He frowned…minor earth tremor? He concentrated and heard a faint rhythmic rumble that was vaguely familiar – for a moment he couldn't place it then he remembered when Sammy had been really little, camping out somewhere in the Midwest. There was a wide but shallow river and Sammy had been paddling while Dean kept a careful eye on him one summer afternoon.

Then Dean heard distant thunder, but the sky had remained cloudless and clear. Looking around his sharp eyes had spotted a rapidly approaching black mass on the horizon. Snatching Sammy from the water, Dean had painfully scrambled up onto a narrow overhanging crag and held onto Sammy for dear life as a large herd of elk, obviously startled by some predator, came charging across the river and into the forest, crushing grass and plants and battering bushes and saplings as they went. The dust had been choking and the noise of hundreds of huge, hard hooves horrible.

Just as the memory clicked, the double doors at the far end of the corridor surged open and a horde of students entered the hallway, relentlessly bearing down on the end lab.

"Sam!" Dean barked, "They're coming here for a class! There's no way out without them seeing us!"

Jumping up, Sam grabbed the just-printed report and stuffed it into his backpack, looking around, but there was no other door – out of the room, that was. "Quick, into the stationery store!" he urged.

Hastily they scrambled into the supply store, which turned out be about four feet long by three feet wide by nine high, and closed the door so it was just slightly ajar; Sam groaned as he realised he had not shut down the Word file or turned off the computer, but it was too late as the door burst open and chattering students poured into the room; they were well and truly trapped – and if anyone came to this supply room for a pen, royally screwed as well.

_Continued in Chapter 11…_

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart


	11. Chapter 11

**_Disclaimer, Summary, Rating:_ **See Chapter 1.

**THE SCENT OF YOU**

**Chapter 11**

Peeking through the door, Sam sagged in relief when the lecturer frowned at his computer screen momentarily but with an exasperated pursing of lips simply closed down the file and turned it off.

Dean switched off the moment he heard the man use the words 'low-resolution' and 'genetic' and 'cross-re-combining' in the first sentence. There had to be a way out of here before he was driven to attempt hari-kari with one of these pencils.

He glanced up and saw the ventilation duct cover above the top shelf on the rear wall, and thumped Sam in the back, pointing at it as he whispered, "Get us out of here."

Sam looked and smiled, then leaned in close to Dean and whispered into his ear, "'Only if you say: It's really lucky you're taller than me, Sam.'"

There was a dangerous silence and then the sharp point of a large hunting knife was pressed lightly against the septum under the tip of Sam's nose. "I will _hurt_ you," Dean admirably managed to hiss a sentence containing no "s".

Knowing when to stop pulling the tiger's tail, Sam contented himself with smirking at his brother as he used the small steps to reach the vent, but it had four screws in each corner rather than just being slotted in. Dean tapped his lower leg and held up another knife to him, not the hunting knife from the back of his waistband but a thin, assassin's stiletto with a delicate but razor-sharp tip. Thank-you, Dean's paranoia; it was just enough, if he was careful, to be able to unscrew the duct cover and prop it to one side. Stepping down, he boosted Dean up to the vent first, and then pulled himself up, going in backwards so he could pull the cover over the opening. He couldn't screw it back into place, but was able to wedge it so reasonably well it was possible nobody would notice the missing screws for years.

Turning around in a space that confined took some contorting for someone of his height and he heard Dean snicker up ahead. Dean began to crawl on his hands and knees along the shaft until he reached an intersection and Sam told him to go right.

Dean looked back over his shoulder, "Dude, don't tell me even you were geek enough to memorise the layout of the ventilation system?"

"It's an educated guess," snapped Sam, "the campuses may change but most colleges these days have a standard architectural infrastructure."

"Meaning?"

"If that's the same here, we should be able to get to the Horticulture Quad again, and there's a side exit to the parking lot there without us having to walk through the main college building. Besides, what better way to get round the university without having to worry about being seen?" Sam pointed out.

Dean carried on moving, shaking his head. "Is there any reason that isn't sad, pathetic and totally nerdy as to why you know the standard layout of college campuses ventilation systems?"

"Yeah, saving my butt," Sam replied, "speaking of which, if I were you I'd start working out a little more at the gym, bro', cause yours is starting to sag."

Dean paused and kicked back blindly with his leg but Sam had been waiting for the manoeuvre and was well back. Deciding to save his retribution for a more appropriate time, Dean pressed, "What'd'yah mean, saving your butt?"

"Well, these two Stanford jocks wanted the genius-freak Freshman to do their term paper for them. When I refused I explained that they were Neanderthal troglodytes who could make their greatest contribution the future benefit of humanity by having vasectomies…and then I ran like hell."

"And do your other hobbies include punching starving grizzlies and sticking your head in the mouths of hungry lions?" Dean demanded.

"I hid out in a ventilation duct," Sam explained, ignoring the heated comment, "in fact I had to spend the next two weeks using the vent system to get around the campus. Fortunately they were seniors and my first term was their last."

"I swear you need a keeper." Dean muttered under his breath, "How did you survive without me for four years?"

_I honestly don't know, bro', and I never intend trying to again…and now I'll start acting like a grown up instead of a sulking adolescent and make sure I've got your back as much as you've always protected mine. _Aloud, Sam said, "Go left up ahead."

Crawling on your hands and knees quickly became tedious unless you were about eight months old, and Sam realised ruefully that Dean would be insufferable if they exited the ventilation system only to find themselves somewhere really bad – like the refectory as the cynosure of all eyes – rather than the Horticulture Quad. _Come on, Amarillo, don't let me down_…

But then his nose picked up a smell – make that smells…honeysuckle; sweet pea; lemon-grass; tea roses…_thank you, Lord_.

Dean stopped and examined the grid directly ahead on what was their 'floor' and the corridor ceiling, unlike the vent covers situated on walls, the ceiling covers were just slotted into the gaps, not screwed into place. Flattening himself down, Dean cranked his head this way and that as he did his best to check that there was nobody about who was going to get the surprise of their lives by virtue of a visitation from above. Pushing out the cover, Dean winced as it hit the corridor linoleum, and flipped himself down through the opening to land on the floor, catching Sam's backpack as he copied the move. Picking the vent cover up, Dean balanced it in his hands as Sam cupped his own hands and boosted Dean up precariously so the older man could quickly re-insert the cover into the hole as best he could.

They walked with feigned nonchalance as quickly as they dared through the Horticulture & Arboriculture Department, where it was clear some serious botanical science was going on. Saplings, bushes, shrubs, flowers, plants and so forth abounded like it was a rainforest and everything had tags and labels and fancy temperature regulators or thermometers in the soil or some such. Visually the classrooms were stunning but within a few minutes the overpowering confusion of heady scents made your nose itch and gave you a headache across your eyes.

"Through those double doors and along the next corridor," Sam recalled the college map from memory, "There should be another set of double doors out into the parking lot –"

"_That area is out of bounds!"_

Both stopped in their tracks and turned sharply as two people, a man and a woman, came across the outside lawn towards where they were standing at the junction of the colonnade to the main campus building. The woman, tall, thin and faintly reminiscent of Meryl Streep, had been the speaker; she was dressed in a suit over which she was wearing a white 'lab' coat, while the man was short and plump and dressed in overalls and wearing heavy gardening gauntlet-gloves to which clumps of soil clung.

"Ma'am?" Pasting on his most innocent little-boy-lost expression, Sam made the word a question.

"Those labs are off-limits to anyone not involved in the 1904 Project," she elaborated not unkindly. "I'm afraid you're going to have to walk around."

Dean and Sam didn't need to look at each other to go on high alert.

"You're not growing Triffids or something in there are you?" Dean asked, only half-joking.

She smiled at the small jest, "Maybe next time. We're breeding American Chestnut trees and it has to be an absolutely controlled environment so we can't have people just wandering in and out –"

"The 1904 Project," Sam repeated, "Of course, that was the year the blight first showed up on New York's chestnut trees."

She looked faintly surprised, "Why, yes it is."

"We had a rural upbringing," Dean put in smoothly as he and Sam continued to walk casually, slowly but surely getting themselves closer to the exit every moment, "my dad claimed that when he was really small, there were still a few left."

"There probably were," the woman conceded, "That's the tragedy – and in many ways the crime – of the extinction of the American Chestnut tree. It took decades for the blight to spread across the Continent to the West and South, but back then conservation wasn't even a twinkle in an environmentalist's eye. The U.S. Park Service basically just shrugged their shoulders and watched the species go extinct…" she shook her head, "Four billion trees."

"_Billion?_" Dean repeated.

"That's a conservative estimate," she told them. "In the 101 years since the blight first hit New York scientists have been trying to breed an American Chestnut resistant to the blight, and for the first time we really think we may have cracked it…"

"So we understand why you're taking all the precautions you can," Sam soothed. "We just got turned around, I'm very sorry."

"Never mind…I'll tell you what, why don't you go out through the fire door. We usually keep it locked up…Mr Wirth, have you got the key?"

"Certainly Dr Latham." Fumbling with his belt loop due to the gardening gloves, Mr Wirth hastily unlocked the staff door and let them through, as Dr Latham waved off their thanks.

As soon as Wirth had closed the door again, they hurried to the Impala as fast as they dared without breaking into a run; it had been a close-run thing and they were lucky Dr Latham had seemed to accept them as just unusually clueless students rather than it occurring to her to wonder why two Amarillo students did _not_ know of the mega-important project going on at the college, regardless of whether they were studying botany or not.

It was late afternoon by the time they arrived back at Lake Meredith, just missing the evening rush hour traffic. Going up to their room, Dean took the test-tube of 'rock' and wrapped it in a towel, placing it at the bottom of his holdall for safe-keeping, while Sam took the elastic band off the file and spread the papers out on the table.

"What are they?" Dean asked, coming over from his bed.

"Research notes, chemical analysis charts, mineral analysis graphs, isotope measurements, breakdown of compound compositions," Sam shuffled through the thick pile as quickly as he could.

"They were trying to work out what the satanic football was," Dean surmised. "Did they?" He peered at the coloured bar charts.

"No…" Sam leaned back in his chair in disappointment. "I'll have to read through these properly but from the looks of it they just ended up with more questions…but whatever the lump is, it's definitely supernatural and evil…look," he plucked a chemical analysis statistical report from the pile and showed Dean the percentages breakdown.

"Sulphur…." Dean read out without surprise, "…carbon, trace elements…Unknown composition…unknown composition…What're they?"

"They took a sample to find out what it was made of and found something that they couldn't match up with any known chemical or mineral compound." Sam pursed his lips.

"Significant, then?"

"I'll say," Sam admitted, unconsciously worrying his lower lip as he picked up another analysis breakdown. "Of the physical sciences, chemistry is actually the easiest because it tends to throw the fewest curve balls, unlike Biology and the beast of them all, Physics. For instance, scientists were able to predict and place as yet-undiscovered elements into the Periodic Table years or even decades before they discovered the element itself because they could extrapolate from what they already had what was likely to be there."

"Animal, vegetable or mineral," Dean said in a mock sing-song voice.

"Pretty much…they were arguing over whether the lump was an ancient rock, maybe a meteorite fragment, or a fossilised prehistoric fern…or calcified animal remains." Sam finished.

"Which doesn't really move us along much further than where we were before," Dean pointed out, standing up and stretching by placing his hands in the small of his back and arching. "My knees are killing me. Let's go down for dinner and come back to this later?"

"Works for me," Sam agreed, tossing the papers back onto the table as even his self-admittedly 'geek' brain couldn't be bothered with the graphs and statistical breakdowns.

_Continued in Chapter 12…_

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart


	12. Chapter 12

**_Disclaimer, Summary, Rating:_ **See Chapter 1.

**THE SCENT OF YOU**

**Chapter 12**

"What do you think…the catfish?" Dean pondered.

"Looks good…" Sam admitted, torn between the catfish and the ribs.

It had been ages since he'd had really good ribs smothered in real barbeque sauce. Growing up as he and Dean had made them experts on the perils and pitfalls of usually eating food prepared by others. The restaurant menu was varied enough to give a reasonable variety of offerings to the majority of customers, but sufficiently limited to indicate that the food was freshly prepared and actually cooked in the kitchen; since no commercial kitchen had space to stock a vast array of foodstuffs or could afford to do so on the off-chance someone might pick them, a place that offered the diner everything under the sun gave itself away as a place that defrosted, microwaved, boiled in the bag and poured hot water on powdered substitutes.

"Toss a coin?" suggested Dean. "Heads we have catfish, tails we have ribs?"

"Ah cahn reehully recaahmend thuh catfish…suh."

Sam looked up at the female voice next to their table…and up…_Whoa_…A vision of Valkyrie perfection stood a foot away, in a demure waitress uniform that she managed to make look like a fantasy French Maid outfit. It was a vista of endless legs, lush bosom and luscious pink skin over a heart-shaped face with massive baby-blue eyes and flaxen tresses pinned back for from her apple-blossom pink face. She held the order pad in one slim hand, as she worried the top of her pen with her full upper lip in a way that went straight to Sam's groin like a charge of static electricity.

"Really?" Only the tips of his ears, which were scarlet, gave lie to Dean's façade of aplomb as he turned up the charm to maximum and the wattage of his smile to 'outshine the sun' level.

"Uh-huh," she got the signals and sent them back in full measure; although she looked like one of those stunningly healthy Nordic types – all corn fed and fresh air – her accent was pure, lyrical Southron and flowed like warmed, golden honey.

"There are two of you," Sam blurted unintentionally as his disbelieving eyes spotted an identical goddess of love a few tables away that had clearly reduced the trio of businessmen there to puddles of adoring goo.

"Yes, suh, ah'm Kimber; that's mah twin, Kerry."

_Twins…long-limbed, luscious…_one of whom was doing everything but simply spread-eagling herself across their table and husking, 'Take me now'…he and Dean exchanged a single, eloquent glance.

"We were raised never to contradict a lady," Dean purred, "the catfish it is."

"Comin' right up," she sashayed away, the unfussy, supposedly prim back of her skirt doing absolutely nothing to disguise her voluptuous buttocks.

Sam took a healthy gulp of the iced water from the jug to relieve his suddenly bone-dry mouth…okay, excise all thoughts of bone…boners. His jeans were tight to the point of pain and there was no way he could have stood up from the table without seriously embarrassing himself. From the way Dean fidgeted he was suffering exactly the same problem. He concentrated on memories of Jess, for as with when he'd kissed Lori Sorenson during the whole Hookman deal, he usually experienced guilt and a sense of shamed betrayal when he found a woman desirable.

But for some reason, it wasn't as effective a mechanism as usual. Though he and Jess had met at the end of his Freshman year, they hadn't gotten 'serious' until they were Sophomores and had only lived together for eighteen months before she was murdered. They had had a satisfying and fulfilling sex life, which was a lot more adventurous than many would have believed, and therein lay the problem. Sam's body was accustomed to the sweet warmth of a woman's body cuddled against his in the night, to nuzzling and stroking silky skin and to being welcomed into her slick sheath, hot and wet for him …_whoa_, _not helping yourself, Sam! _

He swallowed convulsively. Come-hither Kimber bore a faint resemblance to Jess…maybe that was why their murderous nemesis Meg had chosen to be a cute, petite blonde chick? As a way to try and 'hook' a Sam left emotionally vulnerable to 'defenceless' women? His ardour cooled considerably as he concentrated on Meg and how she had nearly killed them in Chicago, and how thanks to her they couldn't be with Dad and be a family again…not yet anyway. But unlike Meg, and for all his psychic and telekinetic abilities, Sam was only human and his body responded accordingly.

Ironically, it would have been easier over the past months if Jess had pulled that 'soulmate/love-of-a-lifetime' guilt trip on him, but just after they'd moved in together they'd been with a group of friends that had got into a deep-and-meaningful on the subject of life, love, divorce and 'forever'. That night they'd carried on the discussion back at their apartment; not that he went on about it, but Sam had sincerely held religious convictions which included a belief that your marriage vows of 'in sickness and in health till death do you part' meant exactly that and not, 'until I get bored', 'until I meet someone cuter/wealthier', 'until we hit a rough patch and its easier to dump you than to make any real effort', 'until I can't be bothered to keep my promise' and so on. Dad of course had always been the example of such deep love…twenty-two years later John Winchester always reacted with a sort of surprise if you called him a 'widower'. In his head he was and always would be Mary's husband.

Jess had held identical beliefs. Her parents had married at twenty-five in the small Baptist Church of their home town and were still together thirty years later after having made it through some harsh times. As far as Jess was concerned, a 'successful' marriage was where you were still married to your original spouse when you were a cantankerous ninety-year-old tormenting the care home nurses.

But then she had told him that she didn't expect 'Purdah'. If anything happened to Sam a few years down the line, Jess did not intend to bury herself with him. She would move on with her life, even if that included new love – and she expected Sam to do the same.

"'_Time and unforeseen occurrence befall us all, Sam'" she'd quoted as she'd snuggled up to him, "'and if I get hit by a bus tomorrow I don't expect you to carry on the sackcloth and ashes routine until you're eighty.'"_

_He hadn't liked her to talk about death, especially her own, but he had pulled her close and teased, "Um, what about if you're not dead...?'"_

"'_Then you'll wish you were; I'll chop it off with a cleaver, Samuel Winchester!'"_

"_Yes ma'am…" He'd laughed and rolled over, nipping and nuzzling all her ticklish places so she giggled and wriggled and then moved against him incitingly and they'd made love so wonderfully…_

Sam gritted his teeth as his eyes burned with tears. Now he understood Dad, now he _knew _why John Winchester had dedicated his entire existence to the destruction of the thing that killed his wife. Carefully averting his head as if checking out the other diners, he managed to compose himself before he turned back to Dean, since if his brother became aware of his distress and went into protective big brother mode Sam knew he would humiliate both of them by bawling like a baby in front of everyone…and this was _Texas, _where men could give the Brits a run for their money with the stiff-upper-lip and emotional-repression routine.

He was saved by delicious, distracting culinary smells and Kimber came with two plates of catfish, depositing each plate in front of them in a manner designed to give them maximum appreciation of her cleavage.

"Thanks, Kerry," Dean drawled as he picked up his fork, making her flick him a startled glance, as did Sam who had not noticed any difference, but who had no doubt Dean had got it right.

As promised, the meal was succulent and they devoured it in short order. By the time it got to dessert, it had become a little game. A twin would appear at the table and in a tone that got huskier each time, sweetly enquire if they needed anything else. Each time Dean called her by the right name, though in the end it was Sam who asked what time they finished their shift.

Dean and Sam waited just outside the restaurant until nine o'clock and at dead on, the girls came tripping out in 'peasant' style blousons and thigh-length skirts that revealed their shapely legs – Daisy Duke, eat your heart out. Dean offered his arm to Kimber, and Kerry linked her arm through Sam's, and they went into the hotel's on-site casino. It offered the usual diversions – slot machines, Baccarat, Vingt-Un, Roulette and a poker table cordoned off by a red velvet rope. Other than poker, neither Sam nor Dean gambled for the simple reason that with the other games, mathematically the odds _did_ favour the 'house' even if the casino didn't resort to crooked practices designed to inflate their profits; poker (when played without cheating) was the only game where winning depended on the skill of the individual player rather than the random roll of dice or the flip of a card.

However, they accepted complementary flutes of champagne and sauntered over to the Roulette table. Sam took the merest sip of his champagne for appearances sake but wouldn't imbibe any more – they were on a job after all and a drunk Hunter was easy prey for any opportunistic nasty that might be lurking in the shrubbery, never mind O&E not that far away in Amarillo – some evil creatures such as a Wendigou could cover a lot of miles at great speed on foot faster than any car. Eyeing the table, he remembered Dean's quip after the whole Max Miller nightmare – in more ways than one – about Vegas.

Well…why not? His inglorious visions hadn't done anything for him so far other than to indicate he ought to buy lots of shares in every headache medication company on the market. What was the point of having this so-called 'gift' if it couldn't be used to benefit those who were most important to you? He glanced at where Dean and Kimber were exchanging glances so hot the air in between should have ignited. _Dean, you shall go to the ball_…Concentrating as hard as he could, Sam waited until Dean and Kimber came to stand by them near the table.

A lifetime of practice enabled Sam to whisper softly at just the right pitch for Dean to hear him, but nobody else, and he instructed, "Red Seventeen."

Giving no sign that he had heard him, Dean placed his similarly untouched flute of champagne down on a side table; like Sam, he would not drink it. Nodding to the croupier, Dean placed a $50 chip on Red Seventeen; the wheel spun and the twins clapped as the ball landed on Red Seventeen. Even though Sam didn't drink it, the champagne flute proved to be a useful prop to disguise his whispered instructions. Sam found that it was becoming easier as he went along, and the thought occurred that maybe he could prevent or at least lessen the not-fun migraines if he practised his 'talents' rather than trying to ignore them until the vision whacked him upside the head with the psychic equivalent of a two-by-four.

Words had long since become extraneous when it came to Sam and Dean communicating. When they'd won $10,000, Dean obeyed Sam's flicked sidelong glance as perfectly as if Sam had spent ten minutes explaining the idea in detail with diagrams. He placed $1,000 of the money on Black Twenty-Three…and lost.

It was gone eleven o'clock at that point; ignoring all blandishments they called it quits. Sam and Kerry went to the casino desk and cashed in the $9,000 worth of chips left, and Sam requested the cash be placed in the hotel's security vault. The casino desk clerk was pleasant and only too helpful. Doubtless the staff knew the brothers had only been staying a couple of days and had booked the whole week, and thus were under the fond illusion that they would recoup the $9,000 and possibly more from the Winchesters in short order. Who was Sam to disabuse them of that idea?

Leaving the casino Sam instantly realised Dean and Kimber were not waiting for them; for a moment he tensed but Kerry archly suggested that Dean might have walked Kimber to the room the twins shared in the hotel on the staff wing. Not needing it spelled out to him, Sam allowed her to walk them down the quiet corridor, and wasn't surprised when a thump and a giggle suddenly emanated from behind the bland white door of what appeared to be…he opened it…what a surprise, a fairly large laundry store and…Kimber and Dean were wrapped around each other like eels with no sign of coming up for oxygen.

There was a soft click as Kerry pulled the door shut behind them and wickedly confessed, "We're not allowed to invite anyone to our rooms."

"Uh-mmmm…" Sam's comment was cut off as she surged forward and started to massage his tonsils, but he didn't really mind

…In fact…oh yeah…coherence was vastly overrated; she was voluptuous and bountiful and …_oh, god, yes_…an octopus in disguise with a thousand nimble fingers doing…anything she wanted as long as she _kept_ doing it…

He was brought back sharply as Dean suddenly groaned out a crude, coarse expletive that he usually did not use around women and certainly not in such a situation as this. The shirt he'd been wearing over his customary black T-shirt was a crumpled discard on the floor and his open jeans and half-mast boxers displayed his full arousal as he pulled back from Kimber, who momentarily stood there with her blouson and skirt bunched at her waist flaunting her swollen taut-peaked breasts and ripe thighs, clearly dazed at the sudden cessation of their activities and on the brink of orgasm.

Dean laid his right arm on the edge of one of the metal shelves and rested his forehead on his forearm, extending his left arm out towards a baffled Kimber with his forefinger raised in warning. "Don't touch me right now."

"Dean?" Though in a similar state of urgent need, Sam gently put a likewise dishevelled Kerry away from him; he managed to slightly re-zip up his fly as best he could without doing himself injury, though he was also fully aroused and very close to the edge of climax. Trying to clear the fog of lust from his higher brain, he focussed on his brother's stressed face. "What is it?"

Dean raised his head from his forearm, his lips a flat slash across his face with the effort of his self-control, beads of sweat pearling along his hairline and jaw. He looked at Sam, "Are you carrying any protection?"

For a moment Sam was confused, since Dean had been the one to lock his Glock-17 and Sam's 9mm Beretta in their room safe in the first place...then it twigged that Dean meant a prophylactic…_condoms_…

Sam closed his eyes and mouthed several swear-words silently. "No."

He turned to the twins, who were exchanging, no pun intended, identical expressions of chagrined, sexually frustrated realisation.

"I suppose we could…" Kerry began dubiously.

Dean shook his head from side to side negatively, "Nuh-uh…are you _really_ ready to risk being called Mommy?"

_Continued in Chapter 13…_

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart


	13. Chapter 13

**_Disclaimer, Summary, Rating:_ **See Chapter 1.

**Note:** I have been asked about 'Sam' and 'Dean' seeming to be vacationing more than Hunting, and also the sexual scenes. I have to admit that, like P. G. Wodehouse, writing sex scenes are not my forte. In my opinion, even if you have the body of Brad Pitt or Jennifer Aniston, there is still nothing that so relentlessly looks as faintly ridiculous as the naked human body…I realise I may called a prude, but as far as I am concerned, sex is _not_ a spectator sport; it has always been beyond me how anyone is able to watch a porn movie and get gratification rather than cringing in embarrassment or howling with derisive laughter and astonishment that the – ahem – "actors" can keep their faces straight. While Jensen Ackles with his shirt off in Route 666 was yummy, I did consider the Dean/Cassie sex scene to be unnecessarily and gratuitously long, carrying on way too much after we got the point as it were (especially as you knew there had to be several crew members examining the ceiling/their shoelaces while the pair rolled around on the bed trying to look lust-crazed instead of cold and feeling stupid). However, without giving too much away I will say that the boys' vacationing and cavorting with the twins is relevant to the storyline…

**THE SCENT OF YOU**

**Chapter 13**

Sam twitched as he came awake too abruptly. Blearily he cranked up his eyelids, his eyes feeling sore and gritty. According to the bedside clock it was nearly dawn; already the bedroom was making the shift from blackness to faint outlines of furniture.

His nose was clogged and his head felt cotton-wool stuffed…and he was hard and aching with arousal. He shifted uncomfortably, fighting the urge to push off the covers as he was too hot, but even that slight movement caused his Calvin Klein and the bedclothes to rub against his engorged penis and he gritted his teeth against the instinctive urge to seek release by continuing to thrust his hips against the friction.

Dean's tart question had brought their hot 'n' heavy encounter to an abrupt end and the twins had gone back to their room first, to give the Winchesters time to 'compose' themselves.

As the girls straightened their clothing, Kimber had stepped forward and given Dean a soft, sweet kiss on the cheek. Her voice was husky and her accent thick with the residue of arousal, but with gratitude she had admitted that she was 'way too gone' to notice, but pointed out how, "'most guys wudha' jus' carried ra'ht on so's t'uh achieve thuh own grahtif'cayshuhn 'n' wudha let me run thuh risk o' social dihzease ora 'nunwanted pregnancy. Yawl've gonna long way tah restorin' mah faith that decen', honourable men aren't ez mythic'l ez unicorns afta awl.'"

It had been a good fifteen minutes before their physical arousal had subsided enough for the two of them to leave the laundry store and go back to their room, at which point they both could – albeit faintly – admit the humorous aspect of the situation. Sam had got in a few good sarcastic quips about the mighty Dean Winchester – who strolled around with more weaponry per square inch of his body than Rambo – yet had not had a rubber on him. Flipping him the bird, though without any great heat, Dean had done his ablutions first while Sam checked his email account just in case Dad had sent anything more and shut it down, before getting undressed.

Dean had come out and crawled straight into bed; Sam had noted his bright, heavy-lidded eyes, flushed cheeks and the way the fine tension in his shoulders had gone and guessed that Dean had acted to bring himself to climax while in the bathroom. He himself had been too weary to do more than clean his teeth and take a leak before likewise crawling into bed.

Now he wished he'd taken a similar opportunity, for his sleep had been heavy and restless and plagued by bizarre dreams. Erotic memories of himself and Jess, mingled with flashes of Dean and Kimber massaging each other's tonsils, dancing chocolate Easter eggs, and most strangely of all, he kept being chased by large trees that waved their branches in rude gestures and pelted him with chestnuts.

Dean's breathing remained even and rhythmic. Sam didn't want to disturb him and the problem with being as attuned to each other as they two were was that if he moved about too much Dean would wake up, so taking himself in hand was out of the question, even without the risk of grossing out the poor cleaning maid later on in the day. On the other hand, there was no way he was going to get back to sleep like this.

Moving as carefully and quietly as he could, Sam slipped out of bed and went into the bathroom, softly shutting the door, as it was unlikely Dean would wake for him just going to the bathroom. Easing his briefs over his straining erection and stepping out of them, Sam went into the shower and closed the door also to ensure he made no noise. His actions were to avoid disturbing Dean's sleep as he felt no embarrassment over his brother hearing what he was doing. He and Dean had never had any 'boundaries'; growing up as they had meant that neither had ever absorbed the artificial constructs of social interaction that were characteristic of 'mainstream society'.

When it came to each other, neither Sam nor Dean had any concept of what the psychobabblers would term 'personal space', each treating the other as an extension of himself. Well into their teens they had shared the same bed or huddled together in the same sleeping bag depending on how little money John Winchester had, and it had never once occurred to any of them to fritter more of their precious few dollars on two or three rooms or separate camping tents when they could all bunk in one. Certainly it never occurred to Dean that the average 26-year-old man did not worry about his younger sibling hitting their head in the bath, nor to Sam that if you blindfolded and covered the ears of the average 22-year-old he wouldn't be able to 'just _know_' where his elder sibling was because the average 22-year-old _didn't_ have that inner radar that simply oriented itself automatically.

Besides, it had been Dean who had taught him all about sex anyway. Their dad had begun Hunting alone for longer and longer periods of time the older and more capable of self-sufficiency they got, and the brief, tense periods when he was around were hardly conducive to initiating a 'deep-and-meaningful' on a subject as excruciatingly embarrassing to the male adolescent as 'the birds and the bees'.

Sam leaned his forehead against the wall tiles, welcoming their coolness against his skin. He had been twelve and the three of them had been camping in the Appalachian range, near enough to the trail to rescue such hikers on the Appalachian Trail as got themselves lost, injured or marked as a meal by real bears or Wendigous or other supernaturally evil opportunists, but far enough away from the commercial camping areas to ensure total privacy for their trio. He'd just been wandering around when he'd seen Dean, sixteen at the time, reclining at the base of an old tree. For a moment Sam had thought Dean was simply enjoying the afternoon sun before he saw the movements the older boy was making.

He hadn't felt any shock or embarrassment, just curiosity and confusion as to the strange feelings that what Dean was doing to himself created in Sam's body 'down there'. Dean hadn't acted furtively or secretively and it had been a good twenty minutes to half an hour later when he arched with a soft cry and then relaxed back. Lazily opening his eyes, Dean had spotted Sam watching him from the other side of the stream and merely waited. Without hesitation, Sam had approached as Dean moved to clean himself with a little of the stream water.

Sam had certainly never been ignorant of 'bi-sexual reproduction'. More often than not before Dean was old enough to charm his way into cash-in-hand jobs _without _some do-gooder calling Child Protection Services for child labour law infringements and necessitating them pulling a moonlight flit, there had often not even been enough money for the sleaziest motel of a night. Used to living in tents for most of the year, Sam was accustomed to animals like deer and bears mating and producing offspring. Dean had answered his questions factually and calmly.

In fact, his philosophy of, 'why rush something that makes you feel so good?' probably accounted for Dean's ongoing success with women. Before he met Jess and decided she was 'the one', Sam had had a few girlfriends and all had been appreciative of him following Dean's 'what's the hurry?' ethos. The last had been Millie, the site manager of a camping ground in the Cascades where John had been asked to Hunt a werewolf. A lush twenty-five to Sam's seventeen, she had been plump and pretty and enthusiastic and their summer fling had been wonderful, though Sam made sure Dad had no idea why Millie was so helpful and lenient with regard to camp rules and waiving fees for things she should rightly have charged for.

On their last night together before Dad pulled up stakes again having taken out the werewolf, Millie had snuggled up to him in the post-coital haze and stroked her fingers lightly down his chest and purred, "'Honey, you roam around my body like a blind man that's lost his cane…and it's fabulous. Don't ever change.'"

As a seventeen-year-old he had soaked up her praise but had still been mature enough to heed it as well. Millie was an avid viewer of some TV show called _Friends _where one of the female characters lamented how women had lots of erogenous zones but that guys covered them all in twenty seconds so as to 'set up base camp at number seven'.

He hadn't gotten the pop culture reference but Millie had been scathing in her opinion that, "'most guys' idea of foreplay is to turn back the bedcovers; they go at it like the hare while you're laying there like the tortoise and their idea of post-coital 'intimacy' is to bother rolling off you _before_ they fall asleep and snore like a freight train. And then men have the gall to try and blame _us _when women fake orgasms and choose a life of singleton bliss with a Deluxe Rampant Rabbit Ribbed Vibrator instead of clasping our hands to our bosom and doing that Melanie Griffiths breathless routine, "'Why I'd _love_ to marry your sulking self and spend the next ninety years of my life as your unpaid cook, cleaner, gardener, plumber, electrician, mechanic, decorator, nurse, nanny, breeding heifer and 24-hour-7-days-a-week on-call personal whore while my brain turns to mush and dribbles out of my ears because your idea of coruscating intellectual debate is: Miller or Coors?'"'"

The teenaged Sam had bitten the inside of his cheeks to prevent himself laughing but had been smart enough to realise he was being given an invaluable glimpse into the female psyche and had memorised every word. Though Dad was oblivious, Dean had known what was going on…Millie had not been the recipient of Dean's usual as-automatic-as-breathing flirtation with anything female and he had even been a little stern in his attitude. By dinner the following day the Winchesters had been a hundred miles away from the camp site. Even now, Sam sometimes felt a nostalgic pang for the bubbly, extrovert woman.

Jessica had certainly appreciated his efforts, and reciprocated. Beneath her often serious exterior lurked a wicked sense of humour and a healthy libido. She'd delighted in sitting next to him in the classes they shared with a pensive expression on her face before leaning over with a solemn look and whispering in his ear that she wasn't wearing any panties. Somehow she was able to time it just right to keep brushing past him all day or whispering the tips of her fingers over a bit of exposed skin or giving him a quick grope as she went past apparently engrossed in the chatter of a gaggle of girlfriends, keeping him in a state of tortured semi-arousal.

Or he'd be in the lunch queue and this voice would suddenly speak next to his ear, "'I'm going to ride you like a Kentucky Derby yearling'", making him almost drop his meal tray and yet when he turned his head Jess would be the picture of bland innocence seemingly completely absorbed in the choice between cappuccino and double mocha while he was being glared at for holding up the queue and reduced to flustered stammering. And that T-shirt…that Smurfs top had been the top half of a pair of PJs she'd outgrown at like, thirteen, but she wore it solely because she _knew_ it drove him _crazy_. When he'd been in that laundry store with Kerry it had been so easy to close his eyes and feel Jess kissing him, stroking him, caressing his shaft with sure yet gentle fingers until he couldn't -

Sam gasped with the force of his orgasm, his knees buckling as he came hard. He sank to his knees in the shower cubicle, leaning against the wall tiles until his breathing eased, the tension drained out of him like water from a bucket. For several minutes he didn't want to move but carefully stood up. He wet his washcloth with warm water and cleaned himself and rinsed away his semen in the shower before relieving his bladder as well. Now he felt tired, when he needed to get up in a few hours…

He turned off the bathroom light and opened the door quietly; most of the room was still dark but the small night-light on Dean's bedside cabinet had been switched on. Sam admitted that it had been too much to hope that Dean would remain asleep for as long as he'd been in the bathroom. The little night-light was Dean's way of letting him know that he was awake…and that he _knew_…and that if Sam needed to talk he was ready. Ah, Dean, with his tough, look-after-number-one swagger, who towards Sam was as hard as marshmallow.

"Sorry if I woke you," Sam apologised softly as he got back into bed.

"Couldn't sleep?" Dean asked casually, his phraseology allowing Sam to choose to brush things over or elaborate as he wished.

"Weird dreams," Sam confessed.

Lying on his side facing Sam, Dean quirked an eyebrow. "Weird as in we need to hit the road on your next Vision Quest, or weird as in your whacked-out subconscious?"

"As in my subconscious; I was…with Jess…" Sam's heart twisted as he whispered the euphemism, "…and there was this bunch of other stuff. You were there playing tonsil hockey with limber Kimber, then this bunch of big trees started pelting me with chestnuts…oh, and there were these huge chocolate Easter eggs chasing me and yelling, 'Eat me, eat me, before I melt!'"

"And you persist in derogatory commentary about _my _mental health?" Dean snickered, "At least I just have the garden variety naked-in-class nightmares. Your mind is one scary place, dude."

"Can't argue with you there," Sam gave a jaw-cracking yawn, "now let me get an hour's sleep, hopefully without anything to do with eggs and being pelted with plant seeds…"

"Good dawn, Sammy," Dean teased, reaching towards the night-light with his own eyelids already at half mast.

The images floated behind Sam's closing eyelids…_Chestnuts…Seeds…eggs…Dean and Kimber locked in an embrace…Kerry/Jess with him…pleasure building to ecstasy…spilling himself into the shower cubicle…his seed…eggs…the Earth…cycle…_

"_That's it!" _Sam sat bolt upright as his subconscious rolled its eyes and pointed to the answer written in big letters before his mind's eye.

_Continued in Chapter 14…_

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart


	14. Chapter 14

**_Disclaimer, Summary, Rating:_ **See Chapter 1.

**THE SCENT OF YOU**

**Chapter 14**

"Wha-!" Dean also jolted upright as Sam's cry made him jump. "What?"

Tossing back the bedclothes Sam scrambled out of bed and hurried across to the table, switching on the laptop as he pawed through the papers. "I know why those eleven people were killed. At least, I think I know. I'm sure…" he mumbled away to himself as he held up reports and diagrams of the 'satanic football'.

Also getting out of bed, Dean padded across the carpet and stood behind his chair, resting one hand on Sam's shoulder as he peered at the screen with somnolent irritability. "Um, Sammy, how do you suddenly know why they were killed at…ack…4:37 in the _morning_…?"

"You gave me the answer…well, you put me on the right track…last night when you showed that despite your usual horn-dogging you're not a total man-ho' after all." Sam pulled out the report he wanted.

"Why thank you," Dean retorted with a full load of Dean-sarcasm at this definitely back-handed compliment, making to move his hand until Sam reached up with his right hand as he typed left-handed and moved Dean's hand from his shoulder to the side of his neck.

"I've got a bit of a crick just there."

"What did your last slave die of?" groused Dean even as his fingers began to work on the knotted muscle.

"Nothing, you're right here," Sam quipped, earning himself a flicked ear in punishment. "You were on the edge, but you still didn't risk it with Kimber."

Dean snorted, "That's because the mother of my children will be Mrs Dean Winchester first…and I still don't get it?"

Sam found what he was looking for, muttering phrases to himself. "…possibly organic…residue…blah, blah…We have to go back to Amarillo campus to be sure." He tilted his head back slightly to warn Dean, who stepped back out of the way as Sam stood up from the chair and hurried back over to his bed and began pulling on his clothes. "Dean, come on, we have to get to campus a.s.a.p."

Dean folded his arms, "Okay, well pretend for a moment that this is _Epiphanies for Dummies 101_ and fill in the spaces with words, preferably of one syllable."

"I'll explain as we go," Sam tossed him his T-shirt which Dean deftly caught before it hit him in the face, "We have to go…and we'd best take everything we've got with us."

That galvanised Dean into action, recognising 'everything we've got' as a euphemism for the Winchesters' entire stock of weaponry. Considering that Dean didn't believe it was possible to _have_ too much firepower, the Impala's trunk was solidly crammed with assorted guns, knives, explosives, ropes, garrottes, flare guns, bows, arrows, axes, maces, cudgels, bludgeons, nine different types of cross, pentagrams, protective herbs, Holy Water and so forth; he even had a hand-held portable rocket launcher in there somewhere. Not to mention the portable mini-arsenal they carried around in their holdalls.

At least at this hour of the morning traffic was sparse, Dean thought with relief as he pulled out of the hotel parking lot on to a deserted Highway 136. "I'm still waiting, Sammy," he insisted.

"Look, most of the evil things we hunt weren't born that way…they were created. They were originally something else, right?" Sam burbled earnestly.

"Sure," Dean recited examples as he drove, "A woman in white is the betrayed wife of a faithless husband who murders her children while her mind is unbalanced from the shock of betrayal and then commits suicide. A wendigou is someone who turns to cannibalism and keeps going…Mary Worthington was trapped in the mirror by her own murder…golems or tulpas and scarecrows are animated avatars of non-corporeal entities and demigods. Then there are demons and spirits…"

"Right," Sam acknowledged, "but that's not the case with everything. Some supernatural things _are_ born…they have a _life cycle_, like humans…birth and death…"

"A reproductive cycle." murmured Dean, faintly seeing the light.

"The instinct to procreate is the most powerful any species possesses," Sam said, "even over and above self-preservation. It's why Black Widowers and Preying Mantis boys go after the female even though the Black Widow spider stabs hubby with a poisoned blade after he's fertilised her and eats him and the female Preying Mantis doesn't even wait until after – she decapitates her mate whilst they're copulating and eats his head while his body carries on banging her…So, kudos for your willpower, man." He finished slyly.

Dean loftily didn't deign to reply to the dig as he pressed the accelerator further down on the open road. Truth be told, for a second he _had_ teetered on the brink of just burying himself in Kimber's hot, welcoming sheath anyway; even with the mental image of a baby gazing at him with big eyes that accused him of abandonment it had taken more of a Herculean effort than he would ever let on to Sam to stop when he had been that close to orgasm, especially as it had been a while. In fact, if he hadn't had that night with Cassie, it would have probably have been too long…but Cassie had been different. To her it had been at best an enjoyable nostalgic interlude, which had bordered dangerously close to a pity fuck, while he had had that stupid fantasy that if he pleased her enough, she'd realise it had always been much more than a fling to him and take him back…

Although admittedly 'blue balls' had never been a major issue for him personally, Dean acknowledged, despite his auto-pilot tendency to flirt and play up the bad-boy image. Hunting, even the 'easy' ones, was utterly exhausting not just physically and mentally, but often emotionally and even spiritually. The Hunt burned up your energy like fire consuming kerosene soaked wood and sucked up your adrenaline like a vacuum cleaner, leaving you weary and battered in more ways than one.

Even now he had a companion on the road again to take some of the stress and halve the effort Dean was still often left so drained by a job that his only fantasies about beds were of being able to crawl between clean, crisp sheets and sleep for a week or two. After Sammy had abandoned them for college and he and Dad had separated more and more often to work their own gigs, Dean had rapidly come to understand why John Winchester had had no difficulty ignoring his bodily urges despite his comparative youth when mom had been murdered – if Dean collapsed wearily into a bed of a night how much more so did Dad, twenty years older and twenty years longer at this job.

"That must have been why it took them," he murmured as the thought suddenly occurred to him, unaware he'd spoken aloud.

"What took who?" Sam asked, startled out of his waffling.

"The Vanir," Dean explained, as the sign for Amarillo passed in a blur. "It was one thing I wondered about, afterwards. The not-so-good people of Burkitsville had us corralled with those shotguns like lambs in a slaughterhouse yet the scarecrow ignored us and went straight for Auntie & Uncle Jorgeson; I don't think it even noticed we were there. All the previous victims were a young man and a young woman, but they were also _couples_, they had a _sexual_ relationship with each _other_…and don't say it, Sam."

"Say what?"

" That crack about: 'Come on, Dean, you and Emily Jorgeson were imprisoned by her sicko relatives alone in that storm shelter for over six hours, and all you did was 'talk'- dude you're losing your touch.'" Dean snapped.

There was a momentary silence and then Sam said quietly, "Dean, I didn't think that. I've _never_ thought that. When we were in that orchard all I could think about was that I didn't have any weapons and those freaks were going to stand there and let some demon deity turn my brother into calamari. And that if the scarecrow didn't disembowel me when I tried to save you one of the townsfolk would just unload their shotgun into me, and the last thing I would see was my brother being gutted by some monster after I walked into the situation without being 'loaded for bear' when I came charging in to 'rescue' you because I wasn't smart enough to figure out that the townspeople had to be in on the deal up to their psychotic _Wicker Man-_stroke-_Children of the Corn_ eyebrows."

Dean felt his cheeks heat at this offbeat and obliquely delivered declaration of brotherly love, which engendered a warm and perilously close to mushy sensation within his chest. "Well…okay…I'm just grateful the not-so-good people of Burkitsville somehow missed the fact that the existence of a sexual relationship between the sacrificed couple was more important than them just being two young and pretty bodies…though considering how long they must have been murdering people for that thing, I don't know how…"

Sam shrugged, "Because they were just trying to use the Vanir for their own ends, they didn't really worship it."

"Er…that was the whole _point_ of me and Emily Jorgeson being tied up in the orchard like suckling pigs," Dean reminded him dryly.

"If you worship something, you give it offerings of your own volition," Sam stated. "Someone worshiping a god brings it gifts _freely_ and without resentment."

"Such as?"

"Depends on what the god requires. Some people sacrifice animals – sheep or cattle or pigs – to a god, others donate precious metals and jewels. Some people build temples or churches as a place to commune with their god, others like monks dedicate their lives to its service. Some will abstain from certain foods or alcohol because they worship a deity who has forbidden them, like Jews who don't eat pork, and such as Muslims or the ancient Nazirites in the Bible who were commanded to drink no alcohol."

"So how does that prove the townspeople _didn't_ worship the Vanir?"

"Because they started murdering outsiders," Sam pointed out. "Their ancestors may have been the genuine article but somewhere along the way they became corrupted. If the townspeople had truly worshipped the Vanir they would have sacrificed a couple from amongst their own, not lured in innocent victims from the Interstate, and what's more that couple would have gone voluntarily for the greater good of their families, friends and neighbours…they would have been joyful, not terrified…"

"It would have been one hell of a spring-break party," Dean muttered sarcastically.

"Essentially, yes…the couple would have had one hell of a blow-out party and then walked hand-in-hand into the orchard. I strongly suspect that they would have made love under the sacred tree and then just snuggled up together and died in their sleep."

"That was _not _the way those couples went, Sam," Dean said more harshly than he intended, remembering the feeling of helplessness when he'd been unable to break out of that storm shelter and Emily's terror when they'd been trussed up like Thanksgiving turkeys to those trees. "They died hard, terrified and screaming."

"That was probably the Vanir's way of punishing the townspeople. Saint Paul said it: don't be misled, God is not one to be mocked, for what a man sows, he shall reap. At Stanford there was one guy who never went near a church, mosque, synagogue or temple the entire four years he was there but who prayed everyday. He said, "'how would you feel about a so-called friend who only ever bothered to call when they wanted something from you? I'm not so stupid or so arrogant as to delude myself that God cannot see or doesn't know my motives and intentions.'" That applied to the Vanir," Sam explained quietly, "it knew what the townspeople were up to but it was bound by its honour."

"Honour? What honour?" Dean spluttered indignantly at that one.

"The Bible tells us it is impossible for God to lie…imagine how horrible the world would be if He could make promises such as Paradise and not mean any of it…? If He could break His word as easily and thoughtlessly as most humans do when they prattle, 'I promise..', or 'I swear…' every five minutes with no more thought than a baby and no genuinely honourable intent to fulfil the vow." Sam replied grimly. "The difference between God and the Devil is that the latter greedily takes and takes until you're an empty husk, whereas the former will give you sunlight and air without asking for anything…but if you do give Him what He does ask for then you'll get even more given you."

"So not interested in a theology lesson right now," sniped Dean, still not on board with the Vanir having any sense of obligation.

"That's what the Vanir was all about; the Vanir told its first worshippers that if they provided it with a yearly sacrifice of one human couple, a man and his mate, it would safeguard their crops and ensure bountiful harvests. The townspeople were fulfilling the _letter_ of that contract even though they broke the spirit, and the Vanir had no choice but to do the same until a loophole was found. Enter the Winchesters; I strongly suspect that the people of Burkitsville will suffer a lot more misfortune than merely _economic_ demise."

"I can live with that," Dean commented. "But what has all this fertility and sex stuff got to do with O&E at Amarillo?"

"I think UNT Amarillo is built right on top of the thing's lair."

"Seriously?"

"As a heart attack," Sam responded darkly. "Before UNT there was nothing there but swamp and trees. I think the O&E is one of those supernatural monsters that has a life cycle, being born rather than created. Either it or its forebears could have been on that site for centuries, even millennia."

"Until UNT Amarillo came tripping along," Dean mused, "and somehow they managed to build the college without disturbing it too much so it decided to let them alone and tolerate the humans. In fact, it probably got fat and lazy on a forty-year diet of all that youthful vitality and vibrant psychic energy being pumped out. So what's changed?"

"Someone found something," Sam declared. "That lump of…whatever…it was. They took something from it."

"You mean like on Star Trek?"

"Huh?"

"The Original Series, where they were killing the eggs of that moving-rug alien thing…Vorta, Hooter, thing…without realising it? You think the satanic football is really its egg or something?"

"It's possible," Sam conceded dubiously, "though like you said with that demon crashing planes, demons want death and destruction for its own sake; they're not the protective parents and nurturing type as a rule."

"Any other ideas?"

Sam scowled, "Plenty. Maybe it sheds every so often like that shape-shifter did and that's a bit of it, maybe they dug up the bones of its momma, maybe it's some object it needs to complete some arcane ritual. I have no idea."

"So we also have no idea why it was enraged enough to murder eleven people?"

"I'm not really sure, I get this feeling the answer's obvious but I just can't see – _Stop! Stop!_"

_Continued in Chapter 15…_

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart


	15. Chapter 15

**_Disclaimer, Summary, Rating:_ **See Chapter 1.

**THE SCENT OF YOU**

**Chapter 15**

Dean reflexively hit the brake pedal and laid a layer of rubber across Highway 136, narrowly missing the MASTERSON sign pole as he brought the Impala to a precipitous halt in what he managed to make a controlled skid – before turning a wrathful face to his younger brother. It was damn lucky the time was way too early for other cars to be about or inconvenient traffic cops to have seen that little manoeuvre. Sam knew better than to pull stunts like this!

Sam was oblivious to his ire, "Reverse back, quick; to that church!"

Swallowing several choice words, Dean reversed the Impala back and pulled into the side until they were out front of an old stone-and-clapboard white church with a sign declaiming: CHRIST THE KING. Sam scrambled out of the Impala followed by Dean.

It was an old but well maintained construction, though of no obvious denomination. Until 1836 'Texias' had been part of Mexico, meaning the church was probably Catholic if it dated back that far. Dropping the 'i' after winning the Texias War of Independence against General Santa Ana, Texas had been an independent nation in its own right, the Republic of Texas, for 10 years until 1845 when Texans had voted to relinquish their national sovereignty and become a State of the American Union. During that period Texas had been largely non-denominational, so the church could equally be Baptist or Presbyterian.

Dean leaned against the hood of the Impala, looking to where Sam had hurried to stand in front of a large church notice-board type sign with glass 'doors' that was advertising some theological seminar or religious conference or something.

There was a mock up of a 'triptych' type display inside the board. On the extreme left was a picture of a red-skinned creature with short horns on its head, the lower body of a satyr and a horned tail, carrying a pitchfork and sporting a goatee and a leering grin. Underneath, someone had printed in large black capital letters: SATAN'S SECOND-FAVOURITE WAY OF HAVING THE WORLD SEE HIM.

In the middle, someone had tacked up just a blank, white sheet of letter-sized paper, underneath which was the caption: SATAN'S FAVOURITE WAY OF HAVING THE WORLD SEE HIM.

On the far right picture someone had morphed the head of a handsome heartthrob type onto the body of a hunky fashion model that looked as if it had been taken straight from the cover of GQ. The model was holding open both hands palm outwards and fluttering down was money, jewellery, houses, cars, and little depictions of swimsuit-edition-pretty men and women in tight trunks and tiny bikinis. At the bottom of the picture were a crowd of people eagerly reaching up their hands to catch the goodies, oblivious to the small snakes and red-orange flames depicted around the edge of the picture. The caption read: WHAT SATAN REALLY LOOKS LIKE, and underneath quoted: '2nd Corinthians 11:14 & 15, 'And SATAN…transforms himself into an 'Angel of Light'. It is therefore nothing great if his ministers ALSO keep transforming themselves into ministers of 'righteousness'…BUT their END shall be according to their WORKS!'

Sam was practically pressing his nose to the glass. "That's it…"

"Oh not again….Why can't I have an epiphany for a change?" Dean grumbled rhetorically.

Sam whirled around to face him, his face alight with what Dean privately termed the 'Geek Glow', that radiant joy of suddenly knowing you know the answer.

"Don't you see?" He burbled. "We know what's out there, Dad, you, me, Caleb and Jefferson and all the Hunters all over the world…and we fight it and kill it…but the people we fight _for_ mostly laugh at us, and ridicule us; half of them want us locked up in mental institutions!"

"Not saying anything I don't already know, Sammy."

"Dean, think! What would happen if suddenly, today, it was on the news that the existence of supernatural stuff was _right_ and that it was _true_? What do you think would happen if our Dad was suddenly proved not be a crazy vagrant with too great a fondness for tequila but a national hero?" Sam insisted.

"We could actually get dental?"

Sam grinned at him, "We could get _anything_, Dean. The world would be at our feet. The President would pin so many medals to his chest that Dad would collapse under the weight."

"Fun fantasy; but it's never going to happen." Dean pointed out.

"Ah-ah!" Sam waggled his finger, "It _was_ never in any danger of happening, because of what we _have to do_ when we Hunt. We kill evil things, Dean, but that's not enough; to stop them altogether, we have to _destroy them_ – we cover them with the salt of Mother Earth and purify them with fire and if it's a real badass evil, we cleanse the spot with Holy Water."

"Again, I get this feeling of _déjà vu_ as if I know all this from somewhere…wait, I do," Dean retorted, "I was the one who taught you all this."

Sam growled in frustration at his brother's obtuseness. Dean was one of the brightest people Sam knew – his IQ may have even been able to give Sam a run for his money – but Dean was intellectually lazy, preferring to have others do the mental gymnastics and then give him the Cliff Notes.

"We _eradicate _the abomination from the face of the Earth, and that's our biggest problem," Sam emphasised, "because the only way to _destroy_ the evil is also to destroy all the _evidence_ of it. _We_ say the little smoking pile of ash was a skanky demon-fiend, when it could just be a log of wood and we have no proof because salt, fire and water are the three most destructive things you can use on DNA. But think, Dean," he pointed at the blank sheet of paper, "think what would happen if we could prove these things exist. Empirically measured, scientifically studied, quantified, analyzed, tagged and numbered."

Dean straightened up slowly from the Impala as cogs began to turn. Wait a minute… "It would be bad for evil business."

"Understatement, brother mine," Sam growled. "Every thief's fantasy is to be the Invisible Man, and Evil has managed it…that's how something as terrible as Meg Master's bestial Zoroastrian demons could roam this world for _millennia_ and yet nobody could ever _definitively_ prove they were real."

Dean watched as Sam began to pace, almost babbling in excitement, unwittingly betraying his own 'I'm-just-the-muscle' façade as nonsense as he had no problem keeping up with Sam's rapid-fire delivery.

"One of the hardest things for our kind to accept with what we do is that we _can't_ save everyone. We can't be in every State of the Union, every city of the world, when some dumb kids in Oslo, Norway start fooling around with an Ouija Board because they _know_ it's all a crock, or some stupid teenager in Edinburgh, Scotland stands in front of a mirror and summons Mary or the Hookman because they _know_ it isn't real." Sam ranted. "It is so hard to accept that…that…"

"Sometimes no matter how quickly you run, you'll never be fast enough; sometimes no matter how tightly you hold on, you'll never be strong enough," Dean supplied quietly for him…it was a familiar nightmare, almost a friend from his fifth year of life, his ever present terror that one day the person who would be fatally failed by _his _failure to be fast enough and strong enough would be Sammy.

"Even though we fight so much…I see what it does to Dad, what it does to _you_…it's a cold comfort to know that we've prevented more deaths when so many have been killed…Dad will be beating himself up forever that he never put together those disappearances in Burkitsville years ago…" Sam said earnestly, "…and the world today just makes it harder than ever, because the world around us is all about moral relativism; 'do your own thing and be happy' Lori Stevenson said, but that's a bankrupt philosophy, because what happens when that hurts other people? What about the cuckolded husband of Reverend Sorenson's mistress? Or their children? Or Lori? Where does that leave them?"

Dean didn't answer, recognising the rhetorical questions as Sam's busy brain 'thinking aloud'.

"People today don't believe there's an upstairs, never mind that there's anyone there. So like gullible animals who keep taking the bait they're picked off, surrounded by invisible thieves who plunder at their leisure. But we're one-eyed men in the land of the blind. We know what's out there; we know that not only is there an upstairs and someone's there, we know…."

"There's also a basement with a bogeyman," Dean finished.

"And what would happen if that became known? If it was proved; if all the invisible thieves suddenly found they'd lost their powers and were walking around in orange jumpsuits like a sore thumb?"

"Evil would lose its power base," Dean admitted.

"Oh, way beyond that…Evil would be ended…" Sam shook his head at the awesome magnitude of the concept. "Think about it…we're laughed at, ridiculed, scorned. We have psychobabblers trying to institutionalise us, religious crackpots trying to either canonise us or demonise us, and law enforcement types trying to pin everything back to Jack the Ripper on us and throw away the key. But most of the time it's not that people don't believe us, it's that they don't _want_ to believe us."

"A man convinced against his Will, Is of the same opinion still." Dean quoted Alexander Pope quietly.

Sam pushed back his fringe wearily. "Damn right, bro', because belief places you under a _moral obligation _to act. You're the only guy in your town with a working TV so when the hurricane warning comes you can cower in the cellar with your family and be safe, but you're still as guilty of killing your neighbours as if you'd burst through the door with an AK47; having the only working TV placed you under a moral obligation to act to help them."

"Most people don't want to leave their comfort zone; _accepting_ means you have to _deal._" Dean shrugged with the blasé resignation of someone who has encountered the tendency practically on a daily basis, and he had to admit he'd known Cassie had fallen into that category from the start; he just hadn't wanted to see it. "So most people rationalise for all they're worth, helped by the fact that even the world's most convincing liar will _never_ be as good at lying to others as he is at lying to himself."

"Even Becky Warren was like that," Sam acknowledged. "She _saw_ the shifter _become_ her so it could capture me, she saw _you_ shoot 'you', but when I hugged her goodbye I could see in her eyes that she didn't really accept it. She _said_ that her and Zack and my college buddies missed me at college, but what she really _meant_ was she wanted me to go back to Stanford instead of carrying on travelling with you because that way she could pretend Jess had really died in a freak accident from faulty wiring and she could dismiss the whole shape-shifter thing as a stress-induced hallucination."

"Yeah, I got that…" Dean had never been as eager to get away from a place – not even the Bender family's fun home-town, as he had been to leave Rebecca Warren in a cloud of Impala dust. The entire time they'd been in that town he'd swung between jealousy over being constantly confronted by examples of the great time Sam had had at college and fear that Sam would acquiesce to her not-as-subtle-as-she-imagined manipulation to jettison the road-trip with his whacked-out brother and scurry back to normalcy and her 'my parents live in Paris half the year' lifestyle.

"But if the evil elephant in the corner was scientifically proven to be there and _really _shitting on your priceless Aubusson carpet," Sam whispered, "then it would be a whole different ball game. Every church, chapel, mosque, synagogue, temple and square inch of hallowed ground would be standing-room only not just on the Sabbath but eight days a week…"

"And it wouldn't matter that the Devil always offers you hot cherry pie and fresh cream instead of cold cabbage," Dean contemplated the fantasy of global piety before his mind's eye. "Right now people have only got the word of Hunters like us to go on when we warn them the goodies are poisoned, but if we had a demon's scaly ass as Exhibit A then Evil would be over and done, because not even the most arrogant, pig-headed and stupid human would wolf down the bowl of pie and cream after 'standing there and watching with their own eyes while the dude poured the bottle of strychnine into the dish' as it were."

"For some reason the demon wasn't around when someone found the Satanic football," Sam stated as they got back in the Impala and set off again down 136 into Amarillo with Dean's foot heavy on the gas, "and the discovery was a disaster for it, because it knew that it wouldn't take long before someone realised that the 'interesting curiosity' was actually a Capital-M Mystery of the kind that leads to sentences like, "'The Nobel Prize…'""

"And since a demon's first solution always involves a body count…" Dean took up grimly, "it simply decided to wipe out those who had come close to figuring out what the find really was."

Sam nodded, "Yep, and at the same time making sure nobody else started investigating. Even the best college is still a business. The demon kills Yolande Godfrey and the college publishes her eulogy on the same day it divides up her workload between her colleagues, but even the best administrative system can only carry on so far if the works are suddenly clogged up with several people becoming unavailable at the same time –"

"Like being suddenly and inconveniently dead," Dean muttered.

"- so by the time it got to Victim No. 3, nobody's work is being re-distributed and nobody is the slightest bit interested in that funny rock for a while."

"Just like a magic show," murmured Dean as he headed down Fritch Highway. "Everyone's watching the magician like a hawk until the voluptuous and scantily-clad assistant parades out bedecked in feathers and sequins – after that nobody's paying attention to the dude in the dull suit when they can get a load of _that_ cleavage."

"Right, and what would you bet that after all the fuss had died down and the unsolved cases had become just another urban legend, that the funny rock and all data pertaining to it had somehow got misplaced?"

Dean snorted, "It's not a bet if it's a sure thing, and that would be on a par with the sun rising in the East tomorrow."

"Uh-huh," Sam concurred. "Colleges accumulate endowments and curiosities and bric-a-brac like dust bunnies under a bed; at some point someone might say, "'Hey, didn't Yolande have some mysterious rock around here somewhere?'" before forgetting all about it and that would be that. We have to destroy the Satanic football and find the discovery site before more people stumble across it and get killed because of what they might figure out."

_Continued in Chapter 16…_

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart


	16. Chapter 16

**_Disclaimer, Summary, Rating:_ **See Chapter 1.

**THE SCENT OF YOU**

**Chapter 16**

Instead of turning into the campus driveway, Dean carried on down South Eastern Street and parked down the block. It was barely 5:30a.m. and even though few people were currently a) around or b) interested, the Impala was just too memorable a vehicle to leave sitting in the college's parking lot for what would likely be at least a couple of hours. Particularly so if anything went pear-shaped, and as far as Dean was concerned, the only time he ever saw Lady Luck was as she drove away in a screech of flash-car tyres while laughing gleefully at him and giving him the finger.

Sam opened the door before Dean had fully come to a halt and was halfway out of the car before he noticed that Dean hadn't moved. "Dean, come on."

Instead of obeying this peremptory urging, Dean bit his lip and hesitated.

Astonished by the fact that _Dean_ was suddenly displaying actual human vulnerability, Sam slid back into the passenger side, but swallowed back the thoughtless 'witticism' that automatically rested on the tip of his tongue as his conscience jabbed a bony finger into his belly and helpfully replayed the understandings he'd come to during his guilt trip at the hotel restaurant when he'd sneered at Dean for ordering wine instead of beer. He had a momentary but clear vision of a suspiciously mom-resembling figure standing there bearing a soapy washcloth and a threatening look towards his big mouth.

"Dean? What's wrong?" he infused the question with concern, not irritation.

"Why destroy it?"

"Huh?"

Dean looked at Sam, his eyes dark and troubled as he spoke in a rush, "Destroy the Satanic football; find the site of the discovery and cleanse it…what if that's the wrong thing to do? I mean, we're Hunters, we're on the side of _Good_ so won't we just be _helping_ Evil? If this came out we'd save millions of lives, _and _we could stop Hunting and be like regular people like you've always wanted. What if we do all this and then find the Angel Gabriel waiting for us with a flaming sword and a seriously pissed expression because the Lord _wanted_ the Big Fugly exposed?"

Be regular people…like _you've _always wanted…singular not plural, _you_ not _we_. Sometimes, Sam loved his big brother so much that the whole world wasn't big enough to contain the feeling. _What an arrogant little snot I am, to ever have thought Dean was too shallow to be capable of deep and meaningful…_Who else but Dean could manage to have a Damascene conversion and a crisis of faith at the same time?

"Because if this did come out, the Devil could claim a loophole, and the past six thousand years of humanity shitting on its own doorstep would have to be restarted all over again…"

Dean blinked. "Huh?"

"Dean, do you know what the Original Sin was?"

Dean scowled, "Something about sex, which has nothing to do with –"

"No it wasn't," contradicted Sam, waving a hand in irritation, "forget Catholicism at this point, they could never tell their ass from their elbow when it came to people bumping uglies, and forget all that reincarnation-celibacy Dalai Llama crap too. In Genesis Chapter One He _told _them to be fruitful, so to punish them for obedience would be cruel-"

"What was it then?" snapped Dean to head off the lecture.

"_Dis_obedience," Sam emphasised. "All He instructed was that they not eat from one piddling little tree out of a friggin' forest. Do you know that when the Devil tried to tempt Eve, it initially didn't work?"

"Nah, it talked, she ate - exit Paradise and don't let the door hit you on the way out," Dean recited.

"The Devil tried the direct approach, but Eve corrected him, so he appealed to something more subtle – her pride. Eat the juicy fruit, honey, and you'll _be a goddess_. And it worked."

Dean glared, "Sam, so help me if you don't stop like you're lecturing Theology 101 and get to how this applies to our problem –"

"Dean it has everything to do with it," Sam cut him off forcefully. "Don't you see? Eve was suckered, sure, but the Bible blames Adam for sin because _he knew what he was doing_. When the Devil tempted Eve, he was really saying that God was deliberately withholding something _beneficial_ from humanity, and when they ate the fruit, they were really saying that they agreed with the Devil. They brought into question the whole issue of whether God had the _moral right _to dictate how the universe was run. Think about that for a minute – remember when we were little and Dad's car got caught up in that civil rights riot? All those fat, sweaty dudes bellowing about 'white is might and might is right'? Who has more might than God?"

Dean blinked at this, turning the concept over, "But what about the 'right'? Okay, go on…?"

Sam wasn't worried. Dean could be the most stubborn pain-in-the-ass in the entire history of the universe but once his sharp brain saw the logic of something, he adapted. "He was the Creator of the Universe, He had every right to fricassee the lot of them and churn out a new and improved set of the literal First Couple, but that wouldn't have answered the challenge or settled the debate. He'd just been slandered by one of His own creations to two of His other creations that He had lied to them and denied them something that would help them."

"So He…?"

"Gave them enough rope to hang themselves with," Sam sighed. "Genesis puts it a lot more poetically but in essence the Lord said, "Okay, fine, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to let you go your own way for a while. Do what you like, I won't interfere…but you can't have your cake and eat it. You want to do it your way, then do, but don't whine about split milk. No big hand will pluck that cancer-on-a-stick cigarette from your lips, no wagging finger will chastise you for being faithless to your wife and ripping apart your family, there will be no heavenly warnings when nearly a quarter of a million people die in a tsunami that you would have known all about if you hadn't been too stingy to install the warning system and too indifferent to act upon it when your government got _three hours warning _the thing was coming."

"I get it…God doesn't have to lift a finger, because humanity is proving all on its own that we're hopeless…all He has to do is crook an eyebrow in the direction of the Earth and silently indicate, '_take a look at that mess and tell me what you think now_'. But won't Evil being proved real be a big score for His team?"

"No, because then humanity will become like the people of Burkitsville…or like Sue-Ann Le Strange instead of Layla Rourke," Sam replied earnestly. "Remember what you told me Layla said to you – that genuine faith was still having it when the miracle _didn't_ happen? In the Book of Job, Satan basically accused human beings of serving God only for what they could get out of Him. 'Turn up the heat on Job instead of protecting him from even stubbing his toe and watch him turn on You', is what he essentially said."

"That's what Layla was talking about…" Dean's eyes darkened even further as he thought back to the beautiful, fragile woman seemingly doomed to die from an inoperable brain tumour.

"The Bible says that God wants obedience and not sacrifice. That's why God promises to get rid of all wicked people and restore the earth to a paradise home for good people…_but won't tell us when_, because that way people show whether they are acting out a genuine affection and devotion to Him or because they're out for what they can get. Eventually, the latter type just get bored and walk away."

Dean rubbed his hand over his face in weariness as he realised, "So, Evil is proved to really exist and humans all become good little girls and boys, but _not _because they suddenly love the Lord and _want _to do something nice for Him, but because like the twisted folks of Burkitsville they get to save their skins by fulfilling the letter of the contract while despising the spirit."

"Yeah…just like I did." The words slipped out before he could censor them.

"What?" Dean half-turned on the front seat to face him, "What are you talking about?"

It took effort to meet his brother's eyes. "When I came to Burkitsville, it was only because I knew you were in trouble, not because I believed you were right about needing to have trust in Dad for once. But when you told me what Layla Rourke said, it preyed on my mind…"

"Sammy, I didn't mean anything –" Dean began agitatedly.

"Man, I _know_ that!" Sam rolled his eyes…_I'm the one who uses words as instruments of torture…usually against you_..."But I realised that a lot of my anger at Dad was my own fault, because I never gave him the benefit of the doubt. It's easy to have faith when folks all around you are walking on water but it's hardly profound. When Meg tried to use us to kill Dad in Chicago I understood for the first time how much Dad really was just doing the best he could…"

"He loves us, Sammy, he always has…" Dean was visibly upset, as he always was when it came to Sam and their father's acrimonious relationship.

"I know…but Layla made me realise…sure it would have been much easier if Dad had always had the time or the ability to explain himself to us, but half the time he was winging it on hope and prayer himself, and what great thing would it have been to obey him? I kept on insisting that I actually see the dude pouring the strychnine into the bowl, but you always had faith that Dad was trying his best, so you were willing to take his word for it." Sam said earnestly. "This is the same thing. Faith is not about the head, it's about the heart. Faith is not about a triple-figure IQ and logical deduction and some lab tech crossing 't's and dotting 'i's; it's about how you feel, it's about love and trust and hope. We're doing the right thing by destroying this because God wants people to do things for Him because they love Him, not because it's a sure-fire self-preservation technique."

This finally made Dean nod curtly and get out of the car, as Sam knew it would. Anything in the vicinity of a serious analysis regarding the underlying reasons for the at best ambivalent and at worst hostile relationship between Sam and their father made Dean recoil. Misplaced guilt again; Dean constantly lectured Sam that nothing was his fault – not mom's death, not Jessica's, not shooting Dean in the asylum, not abandoning his brother in the middle of nowhere Indiana in a sulking strop to go to California – while always finding fault in within himself for the tensions between Sam and John Winchester.

As he inserted assorted sharp and nasty things into his jacket pockets from the trunk, Sam knew very well why. Dean loved their father in the way that sons are supposed to love their dads, which was why it had always been easier for him to obey without question where Sam balked, because Sam…didn't. _But Dean has always felt guilty because we all three know that I love him like that, instead of Dad…Even though it was Dad who abrogated fatherhood to Dean when it came to me, Dean has always felt like a usurper because he knows that Dad knows that though I love him… I love Dean more…Dean has always felt guilty over knowing that if it ever came down to the wire I'll choose him because he's always been more important to me._

_Continued in Chapter 17…_

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart


	17. Chapter 17

**_Disclaimer, Summary, Rating:_ **See Chapter 1.

**THE SCENT OF YOU**

**Chapter 17**

It took them ten minutes to make their way to a rusted-up ventilation duct obscured by shrubbery at the base of an exterior wall; they had memorised the placement and scope of the college's security cameras as best they were able, acutely aware that they could not afford for Sheriff Henson or anyone else to end up with CCTV footage of them on campus at this hour or even worse, doing a little pre-breakfast B & E.

Having come prepared, Dean liberally sprayed the rusted frame with a solvent to make it quieter and easier to pull free and they carefully clambered inside the duct, with Sam pulling the cover back in place. Laboriously they made their way through the vent system to the staff laboratory, as even at this hour cleaning and maintenance employees were occasionally present and the slightest noise they made would echo. By the time the pair of them clambered back out into the corridor – something that uncomfortably put Sam in mind of Mary Worthington hauling herself out of her mirror after them – his knees and the palms of his hands were dirty and killing him.

They slipped into the staff lab and using tongs, carefully removed the 'satanic football' from the drawer and placed it in the small carry-sack they'd brought. Creeping out of the lab, they were able to exit into the grounds via a side door and hunkered down in the shelter of the wall where two of the campus buildings joined in a right-angle. Coming outside so far from the bolt-hole of the ventilation system was a calculated risk, but trying to destroy the thing _in situ _was far too likely to result in the smoke alarms being triggered or something equally as horrendously attention-drawing.

They placed the carry-sack on the paving stone but didn't bother to take the 'rock' out again as the carry-sack would have to be destroyed also. Sam liberally poured rock salt over the thing followed by kerosene and Dean flicked a cigarette lighter and held the flame to the stuff.

"Uh…Dean…"

Dean didn't speak aloud, but the expletive he mouthed was clear as the small blaze merrily consumed the carry-sack, gasoline and salt, only to leave the 'rock' smoking but otherwise apparently undamaged.

"I'll try the Holy Water." Sam liberally splashed the sanctified liquid over the rock, and yes, there was smoky hissing as the water began to pit the surface…slowly. At the current rate of progress they would have to immerse the 'rock' in an entire swimming pool of Holy Water for about a month before it dissolved.

"Wait…let me try something." Bringing out his serrated hunting knife from the back of his waistband, Dean used to the handle to break off a pebble-sized chunk. "Now let's try it again."

Once more they applied salt, kerosene and flame, and this time the stuff burned away to a crisp that dissolved under a few splashes of Holy Water. Exchanging resigned looks, they broke the 'rock' into small pieces, destroying each one thoroughly but as fast as they dared as the half-light gloom around them inexorably became brighter and the number of people traversing the corridors on the other side of the wall became increasingly frequent.

"Man, this isn't going to cut it," Sam fretted as the last grains dissolved into smoke under Holy Water droplets, checking his watch. "It's nearly half-seven and we still haven't found the source and there are already too many people about…"

"Yeah – _whoa…_"

"What?" Sam asked as he tried to look whether they had a clear run back to the staff lab where they could access the ventilation system.

"I finally had an epiphany too," Dean caught Sam's sleeve and pulled him back down. "I just realised…we're crawling around the vents so we're not spotted by any of these people cleaning and opening up…what if one of them is also the demon?"

Sam blinked in astonishment at his own failure to have ever considered this blatantly obvious idea.

"Think about it - UNT Amarillo and the fugly been sharing floor space for forty years, but in all that time nobody here has ever noticed anything unusual, and no urban legends about strange sightings has cropped up," Dean pointed out. "But the demon has to have free and unfettered access around here, so that means it has to be either literally or metaphorically invisible."

"And what better way to hide in plain sight?" Sam agreed. "Literal invisibility isn't likely considering that we could see the 'Satanic football' so…Possession like Meg Masters, or something that's taken human form?"

"Doesn't matter," Dean dismissed, "but I'd lay odds that whoever it's possessing or imitating is one of these working stiffs-!" his voice rose sharply and both ducked down reflexively as a large man carrying a pair of stepladders came barrelling along the corridor on the inner side of the wall.

"You're right," Sam praised as they began to make their way back inside the building to the staff lab. "Students are no good – they change every four years. Same with faculty – they get promoted, they retire, they die, and they're too conspicuous. But the people who actually do the work, the cleaners and cooks and gardeners and secretaries who make sure that everything runs smoothly…"

"Yeah, nobody notices them as _people_," Dean said as they slipped back in through the side exit and he pulled the door closed as quietly as he could. "Old Fred the caretaker or Doris the cook, someone who's part of the furniture…"

"Someone who fits the paradox of a person with no power but who can go anywhere unchallenged," mused Sam.

"Like those top-secret military installations," Dean said, "where the only two people with unrestricted access to all areas are the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and…" they looked at each other and chorused, "…the cleaning lady."

"I'm going to have to get a list of all the ancillary workers and support staff," groaned Sam. "What time is it?"

"It's seven…forty-two in the a.m. _now._"

"Damn."

"Hang on…another train from Epiphany just pulled into the station. Can we get to the roof through the vent system?"

"Sure?"

"Then shag ass, MacDuff, and lead on."

_Continued in Chapter 18…_

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart


	18. Chapter 18

**_Disclaimer, Summary, Rating:_ **See Chapter 1.

**THE SCENT OF YOU**

**Chapter 18**

Sam led them out onto the nearest accessible flat roof and watched as Dean pulled a pair of binoculars out of the holdall, comprehending his brother's idea. This would give them a much better view of likely 'discovery sites' than running all over campus at ground level trying to determine which spot made the EMF shriek loudest.

Struck by a notion, Sam suggested, "See over there, two o'clock position? That's the Archaeology Department. Have a look that way."

"You think?" Dean obediently trained the binoculars in that direction, ignoring the building itself but focussing on the surrounding garden and the tree line of the park.

"One of the main problems with archaeology is that by its very nature it destroys what it discovers –"

"Sounds familiar."

"Which is one of the big scientific no-no's, so budding Indiana Jones's aren't just given trowels and told to have fun, they're trained to dig dirt properly…"

Dean grunted approval of Sam's idea, "So your think the Prof got his Archaeology 101 class turning over the sod around the archaeology department for practice and one of them dug up more than the demon was prepared for?"

"My first choice was Arboriculture & Horticulture," Sam confessed, "but it's not likely. That whole place is too regimented and monitored."

"Well, pat yourself on the back…take a look-see," invited Dean, pointing with one hand and holding out the binoculars with the other.

Putting them to his eyes, Sam followed Dean's direction and saw a flash of blue tape at the tree line behind the Archaeology lab. An area of about ten square feet looked as it had been used as play area by a group of rambunctious toddlers, with a lot of soil mounds and shallowly dug holes. One particular hole was deeper and wider than the rest and had blue tape loosely around it on those little metal poles.

"Let's divide and conquer," suggested Dean as Sam handed him back the binoculars. "I'll deal with the hole, you break into the secretary's office to steal the staff list and we'll meet back at the car."

Sam looked at his watch, which read 7:57a.m., "Works for me."

Alone he headed back into the vent system to make the trek to the admin offices; Dean could get to the Archaeology building much faster across the rooftops and without being discovered even when he had to cross open space as people rarely looked _up_, and once there he could just shin down a drainpipe and cut across the grass. Sam resigned himself to throwing out these jeans and buying a new pair, though the $9,000 in the hotel safe eased the pain of that prospect. He was also going to need a new pair of knees too. It was no wonder babies learned to walk so fast after they'd only just started to crawl…this _hurt_.

The vent duct he needed was another ceiling one in the Vice-Chancellor's secretary's office. It was empty as he eased himself down, then climbed back up on the desk and re-inserted the cover. The outer corridor had no security cameras until after a convenient side corridor led to a fire door to the parking lot and as long as he didn't dawdle Sam could be out of here with nobody any the wiser.

He pressed a kiss to his fingers then laid them momentarily against the secretary's name plaque as he found that Amalie Barker was organised and neat and everything that a good secretary should be. Helpfully personnel lists were subdivided into faculty, students and 'interior non-teaching staff' and 'exterior non-teaching staff'. Grabbing a blank CD-ROM from the stack he found in the top drawer, he copied the latter two staff lists from the computer, then shut everything down and wiped off his fingerprints as best he could, though the whole point was to not leave anything that would make Ms Barker think of dusting for prints.

Easing out of the office, Sam checked the way was clear, and ran down the main corridor, diving into the side corridor, ears straining for the sound of any approach. Reaching the exit door, he slipped out, shut it, and scurried away through the shrubbery, not slowing until he reached the Impala, where he waited for Dean. It was approaching quarter-past-eight and as he looked up the block, he could see ever increasing numbers of people beginning to arrive on campus.

Then there was the sight he wanted. Dean hove into view, walking with a deceptively speedy nonchalance and, most important, wearing that 'mission accomplished in style' trademark smirk of his.

"It's done?" Sam asked anyway.

"Taken care of," Dean popped the trunk and put their holdall back. "Applied liberal amounts of salt and Holy Water and filled in the hole. You?"

"Well, I've got the right staff lists…"

"But…?"

"They were in unsecured files on the secretary's computer and from what little I could see they're only the basic name and address stuff, nothing in-depth or personal enough to flag up someone as possibly hosting an evil entity." Sam confessed.

"So what do you want to do?"

"The college has to have a secure database with a lot more personal information on it about the staff," Sam stated, "to cover their asses in case one of the staff turns out to be a paedophile or rapist or something. I'm probably going to need to hack into that, so why don't you go back to the hotel and destroy all the papers and that chunk in the test-tube, and I'll work on the staff list from here – I can get a cab back to you later."

Dean frowned at this idea; of course he and Sammy weren't joined at the hip and they often split up to do different tasks on a job, such as when Dean had gone to Cassie's newspaper and Sam had gone to the local library to research what turned out to be Cyrus Dorian's killer truck. But they were never more than about half-a-mile or a couple of minutes away from each other if necessary, whereas it was a considerable distance and time round-trip wise from Amarillo to Lake Meredith even on a clear road with no snarl-ups.

Seeing Dean's look, Sam explained, "With hacking into any secure system there's always a risk of tripping a firewall. I'll use the campus library computers and that way if I _do _set off any bells and whistles, they'll backtrack it to the college library and just assume it's a student prank, and they won't investigate any further."

"The last thing we need is for them to track a hacker back to our room at the Lake Meredith," Dean acknowledged; that would lead to all sorts of undesired interest in him and Sam and their activities. "Okay, but don't be late back."

Understanding this code phrase for 'be careful because I worry', Sam kept his face straight as Dean got into the Impala and discreetly drove away to go back to the hotel, where he would ensure that all the data on the 'rock' and the tiny sample they had removed would be destroyed.

Four years of practice enabled him to use the strolling groups of students as camouflage as he made his way to the campus library, 'hitching a ride' in the 'backwash' of one walking cluster of students and then another so from a distance he looked like part of the group, making sure he was never so far behind that he was obviously on his own, but never close enough to intrude on their dynamic.

Entering the library past the fountain and keeping his eyes averted from the little side garden where one of the demon's victims had killed himself, Sam's sharp eyes scrutinised the layout as he pretended to pause as a flyer on the notice-board 'caught his eye'. Getting his bearings he made his way to the computer that was situated as far as possible in the corner, away from the Librarian's desk but also positioned so that few people would have cause to walk back and forth behind Sam and possibly nosy at what he was doing.

Placing his jacket on the chair he quickly gathered some 'props', weighty tomes of Torte Law from the bottom shelf of the Law Section that he opened up or stood on the table around the computer so that their spines were clearly displayed. Not only did they provide an extra bulwark of camouflage but anyone who clapped eyes on something that read along the lines of '_Texas Agricultural Taxation & Torte Law: Appellate Court Decisions 1973-1974'_ would immediately veer away with that 'Geek Alert!' look on their face.

Sam quickly looked at one of the CD-ROMs he'd copied, but as he'd suspected, they were merely the academic variant of name-rank-serial-number, with nothing to differentiate other than that. He would need to access the personal personnel files for clues as to who was a devil in disguise.

Sam proceeded cautiously but was able to work almost as fast as he had hoped. While these databases were designed to be secure, there were loopholes, especially as the one common flaw was money – or rather the reluctance to spend it. Like any other business colleges wanted the highest return they could get for their dead presidents, and so often used the _same_ computer companies to supply both their hardware and software systems. It was common for programmers and engineers to install 'back door systems' to allow remote access, or quick access in such a situation as being called by an irate university secretary at ten to five on a Friday because the system had gone down. As long as he didn't get cocky, Sam should be able to explore the database without leaving any footprints.

Keeping a weather eye on what was going on around him Sam made it into Amarillo's staff database. His chances of getting caught were less also because he was ignoring both the students and the faculty, and instead focussing on what were, to be brutal, the non-important cogs of the machine. He was much more likely to trip an alert trying to access a professor's personnel file or one of the students than 'Phyllis the cleaner'.

Unlike the secretary's computer list, the personnel file was a straight A-Z of all ancillary workers both internal (cleaners and cooks) and external (gardeners and plumbers) rather than separate. He clicked on the first name: Abrams, Josef, Assistant Caretaker (East Block) and scanned it quickly, finding it was what he needed – detailed and comprehensive yet without meandering on for pages of irrelevancies. He checked again to see who was where, knowing that it was imperative he not be discovered ogling this database by one of the librarians or a passing student. These files contained such juicy details as Social Security numbers, and credit ratings, home addresses and so forth that would be a godsend to identity thieves and illegal-immigrant gang-masters.

As Sam had told Dean, they had to contain detailed personal information to ensure the safety of the teenagers and young adults from paedophilic or exploitive types, but they were also there to protect the staff from unscrupulous or vindictive actions. Just a week before Sam had first met Jessica at Stanford, it had been national news about how a vindictive Sophomore used a virus to remote access the home computer of one of his college professors and download child pornography onto the man's machine, before anonymously tipping off the FBI that the man was a paedophile. It was pure luck that the man had been in hospital with his wife and one of his children for a medical test on a day and time his home PC had him supposedly downloading the vile filth, enabling the Operation Ore FBI task-force to track the real culprit. When arrested, the Sophomore had evinced no remorse or indeed any comprehension that he done anything wrong, at his trial instead blaming the professor in question for bringing it upon himself by not giving the grade the student 'deserved' in the first place.

Barker, Amalie – ah, secretary lady - Barnes, Keely; Bertolucci Alfredo; Bryant William…the left front pocket of Sam's jeans began to vibrate, making him start. He had to shove his hand deep into the pocket and it took a good couple of hard tugs to get the cell phone out and it wasn't until he tilted the chair onto the two back legs in frustration and instinctively thrust his hips upwards slightly as he braced his feet flat on the floor to put some slack in the tight material of the denim that Sam caught a faint glimpse of himself in the distorted reflection of a polished support pillar and realised his movements were inadvertently suggestive to the point of being publicly obscene…_Ohmygod I look like I'm jacking off!_

Blushing furiously, a quick glance around showed that mercifully nobody was looking at him, so he yanked the cell phone out and cringed back down in the chair, seeing that it was Dean calling; he answered, his voice little more than a whispered squeak of mortification. "Y-y-he-huh?"

"Sam?"

He cleared his throat, managing to speak softly but normally, and willing the heat he could feel emanating from his cheeks to go away, "Yeah, yeah I'm here."

"I'm calling from the hotel parking lot-"

"Just?" Sam glanced up automatically at the large wall clock above the front desk that he had checked against his own wristwatch for accuracy. It had both a circular clock face and a smaller LED in the middle along with the day and date. It currently read 12:32…which explained why Sam was feeling hungry – where had the time gone…and what on Earth was Dean doing taking nearly four hours to get back to Lake Meredith?

"Apparently a rig's overturned on I87 southbound between Machovec and Dumas," Dean explained, his voice clipped with irritation, "so everyone and their great-aunt Maud is trying to get off the Interstate and go around."

"Is it bad?"

"Looks like there could be gridlock for most of the day, so just make sure you have enough cash to cover when you grab a cab back here in case you end up in a tailback," Dean instructed. "Anyway, there are some walking trails around the lake, so I've decided to take an afternoon constitutional with my Pebble of Evil and those papers we took; I'll find a quiet glade and have myself a nice little camp fire."

"Okay."

"How're you doing that end?"

Sam blew out a raspberry of disgust. "I'm currently up to the Cartwright brothers, Ben and Joe."

Dean snickered in response. "Cartwright? Ben and Joe? You're kidding…"

"Nope, and before you ask, I've just checked to make sure there isn't a third brother called Hoss."

"I used to love that show…" Dean reminisced briefly. "So did you. Do you remember how you used to call Michael Landon Will Woe instead of Little Joe?"

"Don't remind me," Sam mock-pleaded, also smiling at the recollection, but for a different reason.

As it happened, _Bonanza _hadn't been his favourite TV show at all, only Dean's, but Sam had liked it because for a long time after Dean started saying he was 'too big' to snuggle up on Dean's lap anymore, when Dean watched _Bonanza_ he was so wrapped up in the show that Sam had been able to get away with doing just that. It had also helped that anytime one of the show's male characters encountered a remotely attractive female, the woman was dead within three episodes, regardless of the improbability of her demise. It had eventually led to the phrase '_Bonanza woman_', referring to any female character obviously brought into a TV show for no other reason than to die tragically and thus spur on the hero's righteous quest for revenge or enable him to fall in love with a younger, hotter starlet-of-the-moment to boost ratings. Sam had soon found that doing the 'big-eyed/trembling lip' little boy lost routine when it came to the actress's death scene led to even more cuddling and hugging and earnest reassurance from Dean, unaware that his baby brother was wrapping him around his little finger.

"Anyway, it sounds like fun…see yah later, Sammy."

"It's _Sam_ –" but he was chiding the dial tone as Dean had already rung off.

Shifting his butt in the chair to try and stave off 'numb bum' syndrome, Sam tried to get comfortable. His stomach grumbled and he hesitated indecisively…But if he took a break for lunch he would have to hack into the database again and there was no guarantee he wouldn't set off alarm bells the second time, plus the library was now very busy and he could lose this prime place for privacy if he risked going to refectory, where by the time he'd queued for food, found a seat and eaten it he'd have lost nearly an hour, not to mention the risk of some students recognising an interloper into the herd and homing in on him to find out his who/what/where/when/why. So regretfully he turned back to the list.

_Continued in Chapter 19…_

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart


	19. Chapter 19

**_Disclaimer, Summary, Rating:_ **See Chapter 1.

**THE SCENT OF YOU**

**Chapter 19**

…Wagner, Oliver; Wentworth, Chloe…Wirth, Vernon – oh yes, that gardener dude with the aptly named Dr Rosemary Latham…Worth, Verity…Yeager, Tobias; Zhou, Sing Sun; Zungçu, Xelola.

Sam carefully exited the database and blew out a frustrated breath. Of course he hadn't expected any of them to have a red banner headline on their file: POSSESSED, or anything, but at least _something _that would give him a heads-up…he and Dean could hardly go around muttering 'Christo' and flicking drops of Holy Water onto over fifty people in the hope one of them flinched and started to smoulder.

But everyone was apparently the epitome of ordinary, respectable, hard-working Texas folk. Sam looked at the clock and sighed as he saw it was after half-past-two; his stomach had decided his throat had been cut and if it could would have been staggering about clutching itself and doing a melodramatic death scene of fading away from hunger whilst moaning '_fooooooooooood_' piteously.

Forget it…he needed caffeine if nothing else. Stiffly Sam stood up, his backside numb, and shut down the computer, placing the prop books back on the shelf. He headed out of the library towards the college cafeteria, and en route passed the discreetly placed 'health clinic', which was the place where students could deal with issues of sexually transmitted disease and contraception. The mortifying memory of what his actions in the library would have looked like had anyone chanced to look over as he'd tried to wrestle his cell phone from his pocket triggered further recollection of that blasted laundry store. On impulse, Sam went in and obtained some Trojan Ribbed (large – like any guy would ever go and buy _small_) condoms from a matronly black woman who didn't bat an eyelid. No doubt she'd encountered pretty much everything by this stage. The next time he and Dean 'entertained' the twins, they were going to be armed with the right weaponry as it were.

Smiling anticipatorily and replaying what Kerry had looked like undressed in his head, Sam entered the cafeteria, where his libido was summarily shut down by his annoyed stomach the instant the aroma of freshly-ground coffee beans teased his nostrils. Getting a large latte and a cheese/ham sourdough baguette, Sam took a window seat and practically inhaled the food before sipping the latte more sedately. There were quite a few students with coffees around but most had their noses buried in books and paid him no heed.

Again he turned his attention to what in a 'Hardy Boys' novel would be called 'The Problem of the Useless List'. Not that he'd ever really been into the Hardy Boys even before he found out that Franklin W. Dixon was the pseudonym for a whole series of mediocre middle-aged middle-class white men to churn out 'wholesome' Bible Belt fiction where the dialogue was as stilted as Venice and the writers had clearly pulled a Rip van Winkle at the age of 12 to wake up stodgy and staid at 43 without ever having gone through adolescence. In fact, a few years ago there had been an attempt to jazz the series up when Ilsa, perennial girlfriend of the perennially 17-year-old Joe Hardy had been seemingly blown-up by a car bomb…an image of Jessica pinned to their apartment ceiling suddenly popped into his brain and Sam stopped the painful train of thought.

The staff list had produced nothing of obvious interest. The only mildly noteworthy thing – in a distilled Geek way too – was that Verity, as in Verity Worth, meant 'truth'. There was a miniscule chance that the demon had chosen her because of that name but that would indicate it possessed, however warped and twisted, some bleak appreciation of the ridiculous, and like Dean had said, demons were only interested in death and destruction for the sake of death and destruction; just as they weren't noted for parental warm fuzziness, neither did they normally possess any sense - or even concept – of humour.

True, she also had the same initial, 'V', and surname-spelled-differently as Vernon Wirth, but the list had also had a Susan Samson and Suzanne Sampson, plus a Sara Eliot and a Sarah Elliott….

Sam thought momentarily about his own name…he had only ever been Sammy to one person: Dean. To their father, his teachers, his friends and college buddies, and to Jessica, he'd always been Sam. Unless Jess had really been pissed at him in which case it was Samuel or the full 'Samuel John Winchester'. Jess had been the same – she had only ever been Jessie to her beloved grandmother. Once one of his college buds had called him 'Sammy' and been cut off at the knees for it…only Dean could call him Sammy with impunity.

Samuel was actually an ancient Hebrew name meaning 'asked of God' and there were a couple of Bible books named after him. Dad's names were John Thomas; John, the most consistently popular boy's name ever, meant 'God's gracious gift', which even with the new understanding Sam had reached with their dad since Chicago was a bit too hard to swallow. Likewise Dean's first names were Dean Thomas; Dean meant 'one from the valley', and Thomas was an Aramaic word literally translated as 'twin', but which nowadays carried the highly appropriate meaning of 'devoted brother'.

_None of which helps me to narrow the list to anything useful_, Sam acknowledged as he placed his sandwich wrapper and cup in the trashcan on the way out to get a cab.

Although…a faint recollection nagged at the back of his mind as he walked across the campus grounds. All names had meaning, such as New York originally being New Amsterdam; a place called Twin Peaks was not situated on a plateau, nor a town called Pine Valley in a desert.

Personal names were the same. Nowadays because of an increasingly secular culture a lot of people gave their kids names that were merely 'pretty', like Madonna or Brittany or Tiffany or Brett and so forth, but at one time times were given because they had a significance above and beyond the immediate – like his own middle name was John, after their father, and Dean's was Thomas, also after Dad. Dad's mother's maiden name had been Dean, and mom's mother's maiden name had been Samuels.

In most cultures today, especially religious ones, names were still given that carried 'deeper' meaning, such Sikh men who were always named 'Singh' and Sikh women who were always named 'Kaur'. Muslims also included 'al-' prefixes and their names were often derivatives of Allah or Mohammed, like Christians often gave their children Saints or Apostles' names.

_But names also have power_…Sam turned headed back towards the library as he tried to remember as much as he could. Almost every culture had myths and legends about the mystical power inherent in knowing the 'True Name' of something. In some cultures, names were changed after significant rites of passage. The Comanche Indians for instance, had child-names and 'man-names', so a boy known as 'Loud Voice' as a child might be known as 'Plunging Eagle' as a man.

The Biblical patriarch Abraham, the central figure of Judaism, Islam and Christianity, had been born as Abram; his wife had originally been Sarai not Sarah. Their names had been changed by God when he promised them a biological child of their own despite both being in their nineties at the time: enter Isaac, whose son Jacob had also been known as Israel, the founder of the Jewish nation by virtue of twelve sons and even more daughters via his four wives. Allowing someone to change your name or amend it into a nickname showed that they had a certain level of control over you, like Sam permitted Dean alone to call him Sammy; only if it were Dean would Sam tolerate and respond to the diminutive.

Changing someone's name was demonstration of influence and power over them, like God had changed Abram to Abraham and Jacob to Israel. But it could also be done with malign intent; back in 18th and 19th Century Europe the forerunners of the Nazis had insisted that Jewish families change their family names from such as 'ben Jacob' to surnames like Gelbwässer, an artificial construct that translated literally as 'yellow water', a euphemism for urine.

Such racism caused a lot of problems today for genealogists, since when the Jews had finally got fed up enough to immigrate to the USA they had been packed off from Europe and arrived at Ellis Island under 'Gelbwässer' _et al_. As one family history buff at Stanford had lamented, they obediently trooped ashore and signed the immigration officials' books as 'Gelbwäßer' and the second after they were passed through Ellis Island they dropped the surname they had never used except when forced and gone back to their _real _surname…which might not have been 'officially' recorded for years.

Flashing his most charming, 'oh aren't I just so cute with my winsome forgetfulness' smile at the librarian as he went past, Sam went to the Etymology section and eyed the books warily. Pulling out a 'Book of Babies' Names' and studying it with a frown was the sort of thing that led to some well-meaning but wet-behind-the-ears college counsellor sidling up to him asking if he wanted to 'talk' and encouraging him and his girlfriend to 'make an appointment'.

One of Sam's buddies had been in that situation at Stanford when looking for suitable names for his unexpected nephew (everyone having expected a girl) and at the time Sam had hidden and peeked through the stacks with the other guys, sniggering as their buddy made increasingly desperate attempts to extricate himself from the counsellor who merely smiled condescendingly at his increasingly insistent denials of imminent paternity while clearly considering _him_ to be in denial.

Right now, Sam knew he too would not find any humour in such a situation. Dad had given him the 'get a girl pregnant and I'll kill you speech' during one of their fights. Dean had given him the more forceful, 'get a girl pregnant and I will beat you to a bloody pulp and chop off your dick with a blunt knife'. But beyond that, Jessica had been an eminently sensible young woman who knew her own mind and therefore had taken the precaution of having periodic contraceptive injections to free her from the worry of remembering to take pills or if the condom they used just to be on the safe side happened to split. Just like Dean had firmly stated that the mother of his rug-rats would be Mrs Dean Winchester before she was 'mommy-Sammy-ate-my-Lucky-Charms', so too Sam and Jess had been determined they would be Mr & Mrs Winchester before they were Mom & Dad…

And now there was his newly acquired fear, the one that lurked in his hindbrain, of what if he passed his so-called 'gifts' to a child? He knew how hereditary traits worked. Had mom been killed because she had the same gifts or would have passed even more powerful abilities to a third child? Had Max Miller's mother been killed for the same reason? Look at what Max Miller had turned into because his father Jim Miller had been unable to cope with the paranormal reality of his wife's death and had turned to alcohol and lashing out at his son instead of the tragedy bringing them together.

For all his dislike sometimes of John Winchester's 'Marine boot camp crap', Sam acknowledged that their father's military background had enabled him to deal with the reality of what had happened to his wife in a way that Jim Miller, without that foundation and experience, had been unable to do. But even so, it had been a close run battle that the tequila had sometimes nearly won. Dean had swung the balance – Dean had been the rock in a storm-tossed sea that had given John something to cling to, the rock that had sheltered a helpless baby Sam from everything including a father incapable of _being_ a father for some time.

Sam knew that Dean had been trying to break the tension with his trademark flippancy when he made that crack about Sam's greatest advantage over Max Miller being the existence of himself – a brother - but the stark truth was that Dean had been absolutely right. The world owed Dean big time, because he alone was the saving grace that prevented America from currently being prowled by Max Miller Mark II, a psychic psychotic.

Plucking out a suitably scholarly looking tome, Sam flicked through it, not even entirely sure what he was looking for. He found 'Dean', and 'Samuel' and 'Verity'... 'Vernon' meant 'strongly growing or flourishing'…something caught his eye and he turned the page back...

'Wirth', from the Teutonic _Wirt_, meaning 'The Master'.

Vernon Wirth…'strongly growing, flourishing master'; a nicely egotistical combination, especially with 'Vernon' being linked to horticulture. UNT Amarillo Head Gardener, Vernon Worth; good old Vern', short and chubby and completely free to roam all over the campus unchallenged and probably unnoticed.

Replacing the book, Sam had to force himself not to pelt out of the library like his pants were on fire, and fortuitously there was a cab dropping someone off as he tried to run to the sidewalk without looking like he was. Jumping in, he waved a wad of notes at the guy and promised him the lot regardless of how much less the charge actually was if he got him to the Lake Meredith Hotel as fast as he could.

If there was one thing Americans excelled at, it was their understanding the potential of the free market economy, and Sam was tumbled back in his seat as…_Luis_…super-glued his foot to the gas pedal at the same time as performing an illegal U-turn.

Traffic was still dense from that morning, but fairly free flowing and the cab managed to get Sam back to the hotel a whisker before the rush hour build-up; Sam ungrudgingly gave 'Luis' all the money, aware that the man's drive back into Amarillo at rush hour was going to be slow and tedious, and waved him off. Slightly conscious of the box of condoms in his jacket pocket, Sam hurried up to their room, half-hoping that Dean hadn't come back from his afternoon stroll so he could hide the box and just strategically place a couple in his wallet, but no such luck.

When Sam was little, he'd enjoyed jigsaws, and Dean, discovering that they kept his baby brother silently occupied – and out of his hair – for hours on end, had encouraged the pastime. Dean used to spread the pieces out on a flat surface and Sam would peer lengthily at each individual piece before looking at the picture on the box.

Now the same thing happened. He took in that the pile of papers and a familiar looking test-tube were still on Dean's bed as a piece. Another part of his brain registered Dean, still wearing his leather coat and boots as if he'd been about to go out, looking into the bathroom; another piece of the jigsaw was the gun dangling from Dean's hand, and another was the strangely blank non-expression on Dean's face, like he was sleepwalking, but without moving. Each individual piece hung there for a moment before being placed together by his brain to make the composite whole.

For a second it felt as if some invisible nanny had grabbed Sam like a naughty boy and dunked him wholly into a cold bath, and then the hand with which Dean was holding his Glock-17 twitched.

Sam had no memory getting from the door to in front of his brother, grasping Dean's shoulders. "Dean!"

Dean's face was utterly devoid of emotion, his eyes flat and dull. Dean's eyes were never dull. His pupils were surrounded by a small starburst of amber-brown that merged into a two-colour band of aquamarine and hazel-leaf green, flecked with emerald and black jade, protected by a narrow circumference of antique gold. When Dean was angry, his eyes were onyx stones in his face; when happy or amused, they were almost sparkling emeralds; when aroused they were glowing topaz and heavy-lidded; when he was thoughtful or abstracted they were like peppermint leaves sheened with bronze and flecked with chocolate bits. When they looked at Sam, even though his voice was often sarcastic, Dean's eyes were the green of fresh, spring meadow grass in their warm affection. Now his eyes looked like they had been painted on by someone with little time or care, who had had no colours left except for mud brown.

"_No_…oh no…Dean, please…come on!" Sam pleaded.

There was no reaction; Dean continued to look into the bathroom as if it held the answer to life, the universe and everything.

His preternatural abilities stirred in Sam and for some reason made him look up. In the very corner of the room, where he would be hidden from view when anyone opened the door and walked in, stood Vernon Wirth; entirely and innocuously human, except for his glowing ruby-red eyes.

Inchoate rage surged through Sam as the creature smirked with malicious glee, but despairing knowledge kept him still. Twelve feet separated him from Wirth; he had no idea as to what specific entity Wirth was, and so the monster could possibly kill him the instant he took a single step, or worse, kill Dean before Sam could reach him. Even with telekinesis, he could scramble for no weapon and deal a death blow fast enough, assuming that bullets or cold steel would work anyway.

Dean's hand moved, bringing the gun slowly up towards his own head, and Sam grabbed his wrist in a grip that should have left deep bruises, but it was as if Sam's own arm had suddenly become as insubstantial as a feather, for Dean's arm continued its jerky, inexorable rise completely unaffected by Sam's attempts to push his arm away and down.

Deep down, Sam knew he was sobbing as he whispered and yelled and begged and commanded Dean to come back, to snap out of it, to _stop_; for years he had sparred with his brother, and sometimes their fights had turned from verbal to physical blows, but he had never calculatedly struck Dean.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry…" he wept, even as he raised his hand and slapped Dean across the face with a loud _crack!_, unable even in this extremity to curl his fist and strike with more hurtful knuckles of bone than the open hand of his palm.

But there was not a flicker, as if the blow were as inconsequential and ineffective as his trying to force down Dean's arm; and the gun was now pointing directly at Dean's own skull.

He could not watch his brother die and he could not live if his brother did not.

Sam stepped forward, embracing Dean in a tight hug, feeling Dean's breath against his neck as Dean's face pressed against his throat, pressing his lips to the hair of Dean's scalp and closing his eyes; the shot would kill them both, but maybe not, maybe some miracle would spend its force by the time it had torn through Sam's brain and it would only bruise and bounce off Dean's skull.

It was all he could do, so he held on tight as he could and told Dean how he was the bestest big brother in the world and how much Sam loved him and that he was sorry for what he had said in Chicago and hurt Dean so much and how he would never, _never_ leave Dean ever again for anything and how very, very much Sam loved his big brother more than anything

And the bang of a gunshot echoed in the room…

_Concluded in Epilogue…_

**Note:** for all those who like their endings to be all that rubbish existential/philosophical ambiguous stuff, like for e.g., Se7en, Twelve Monkeys, the final episode of _Quantum Leap _(don't get me started), you should stop reading now.

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart

**Note: **I have received nearly a hundred reviews of this story; though I have been unable to personally reply to every one, I would just like to express how encouraging and positive they have been, as this has been an extremely difficult story to write.

The book is _Dead on Target_ by 'Franklin W. Dixon', published 1987, and is the first in the updated _Hardy Boys' Casefiles_ series. The books have also received a second 'update' – Undercover Brothers - in the 1990s and there are now the "original" books, the "Casefiles" and "Undercover Brothers" series, as well as several crossovers, etc.


	20. Epilogue

**_Disclaimer, Summary, Rating:_ **See Chapter 1.

NB – thanks to Pizzpixie and Phx for pointing out that I had written "Ilsa" instead of "Iola" in reference to Joe Hardy's girlfriend (who was, of course, Iola Morton).

**Warning: **This chapter may cause emotional distress. If you have lost a loved one to suicide or have had a loved one attempt suicide or if you are contemplating taking your own life, please be aware that this chapter deals with sensitive material.

**THE SCENT OF YOU**

**Epilogue**

Dean was hot…

In the overheated not the gorgeous sense of the word.

His face was pressed against something black and irritating and he pulled back slightly from what seemed to be a T-shirt but his ability to see did not improve and he realised that it was still the middle of the night.

And he was too hot because he was being tightly cuddled against Sammy's chest, like the time he had unwisely pretended that the laundrette's washing machine was eating Sammy's beloved Mr Fozzy (which by then would have been more appropriately named Mr Baldy) and Dean had nearly 'lost an arm' saving the comfort toy, only for Sammy to practically hold the teddy bear in a 24/7 body-lock-of-doom for days and scream if Dean or Dad tried to remove the thing from his grasp. Since Sammy had still been of an age when more food went on his surroundings than into his mouth and toilet training had been more of a miss than hit affair, Mr Fozzy's inconveniently absorbent fur had turned him into Mr Whiffy by the following weekend when Dean was finally able to cajole Sammy into letting him borrow the bear for a few hours and wash the thing again.

Dean had been alone when he'd crawled into bed, asleep before his head slumped onto the pillow, and presumably at some point after that Sammy had decided that Dean's bed was large enough to accommodate his 6' 4" lankiness as well as Dean's own full-grown frame.

Dean leaned and rolled back slightly; if he could put a few inches of space to let some cool air between them…

"G'ba't'sleep, Dean…" Sam mumbled.

Whoa, Sammy was awake? "Sammy…" Dean protested softly, moving slightly. "This is ridiculous."

"Don' care."

"Terrific," Dean wriggled away some more, glad for the impenetrable darkness hiding his embarrassed blushes - they were adults for pity's sake, not scared kids clinging together fearfully in the dark…any more.

"I don't care." Sam's voice was suddenly wide awake and clotted with suppressed emotion. "Right now I need this, so deal with the chick flick moment and just. Go. Back. To. _Sleep_."

Dean was unable to bear the distress in Sammy's voice but couldn't help his chagrined reply, "Moment? Dude, this is an entire Disney movie…this is the scene where Bambi's _mom _got shot!"

"And I still don't care." Sam said flatly. "I could do diddly squat but watch my brother about to blow his brains all over the walls of this room a few hours ago. I could see you asleep from my bed but right now that is damn well nowhere near _enough_. I need to _know _that you're not some mad fantasy projected by my brain while I'm really…" _covered your blood and brains_…" I _need_ to hear you breathing, I need to_ feel _that you're solid and warm and _alive_ and not…"

"Me too."

Suddenly being a bit too hot didn't matter as Dean closed the gap back up and put his own arm around Sammy and who gave a damn anyway if this could only be classed as snuggling. With an effort of will Dean banished that Technicolor image of Sam sat in his own blood with his head blown apart, but knew it would never really move that far away from his inner vision.

"However you managed it, if you hadn't snapped out of it…" Sam whispered the words in the darkness, voicing his terror in the knowledge that his big brother would comfort and soothe and understand that from now on, Sam's nightmares would include unpleasant little vignettes where Dean did _not_ snap out of it.

Dean could have given a flippant answer about how the elder Winchester was more than a match for any skanky mind-controlling demon, and in the light he probably would have, but this was not the time and place for flippancy and sarcasm; in the protection of cocooning blackness emotions could be admitted to without having to risk looking into a face that might register scorn, or contempt or disappointment, regardless of how much you 'knew' those emotions would never be shown against you.

"I smelled you."

"_What_…!" was indignantly spluttered.

Dean was still Dean; a tiny smile curved his lips wickedly before he hastened to elaborate, "I don't mean as in having a B.O. issue, I mean I managed it because I smelled _you_. You hugged me when I was about to…I closed my eyes and I smelled your scent and then I could _feel_ you hugging me."

"I don't have a scent," Sam protested dubiously.

He was making odd little noises that made Dean grin anew as he realised Sammy was delicately sniffing the air. "Which of us is college educated again? Every human being's fingerprints are unique, like their DNA or their retina pattern, and every human being has their own personal body scent, even though it can't be _consciously_ smelled – why do you think perfumers have existed for thousands of years and can make a fortune if they market a scent that supposedly is a sure-fire aphrodisiac?"

"What do I smell like?" Sam asked.

"Hot chocolate with ginger," Dean promptly responded, "and…just you…" there was no adequate way to describe the combination of scent that made Sammy smell like…Sammy.

"And that smell when I hugged you made you see through the delusion," Sammy finished.

"More or less," Dean prevaricated.

The scent of Sammy had surrounded him, true, but it had been much more than that. The sound of Sammy's heartbeat had been joyous music to the ear pressed against Sammy's chest; where Dean's face was buried against Sammy's neck was to touch faintly stubbly yet glorious silk and his lips had tasted the faint tang of salt as they brushed against the soft warm skin of Sammy's throat. Too raw, those details; too intimate and exposing to ever be uttered aloud, even in the disguising comfort of night.

So Dean just expanded, "I opened my eyes and you were dead, but when I closed them, you were alive – and you felt alive and solid. I had to make a choice between my eyes and what all my other senses were telling me instead, and I went with the majority…and at least the thing'll never do it to anyone else."

Sam growled inarticulately with vengeful satisfaction. Struggling with the dichotomy of the two apparent realities had enabled Dean to see 'Vernon Wirth' reflected in the wash basin mirror. Dean had been incapable of rational thought but as long as there was breath left in his body, he would instinctively strive to protect Sammy from any threat. So in a move Sammy would never know was copied straight from Max Miller, Dean had simply swung his arm and shot Wirth once between the eyes.

The bullet was lead, plain, unadorned, unsanctified bog-standard lead; but it was totally unexpected and sent Wirth crumpling to the floor in wounded shock. That was all Sam had needed to go psycho on the psycho; in an instant he'd snatched an Arabian scimitar from the holdall and frenziedly chopped Vernon Wirth into fun-size chunks he'd then dumped a tub of salt over and burned on the spot. There was an unsightly basketball sized scorch mark in the carpet but it was right in the corner behind the door and invisible once you put a waste basket on top of it.

Then Sam had eased Dean down onto the bed as he folded like a deflating balloon. Sam had simply swept the papers and test tube into the holdall to be disposed of tomorrow and eased off Dean's boots, socks and jacket, insisting he rest while Sam took care of everything. Feeling dizzy and as exhausted as if he'd gone ten rounds with a werewolf, Dean had been unable to resist, falling instantly into sleep.

"It was so _real_…" Dean tried to explain now, feeling – knowing – that Sammy deserved some explanation, and reassurance. "I remember looking at the bed and moving to grab the papers and then…"

"It must have been waiting behind the door and got you as soon as you came into the room," Sam theorised.

"But I burned the papers," Dean elaborated. "I mean, it was like those Virtual Reality total immersion games? Now I know that really I was here in this room just catatonic and not moving for five hours, but in my head…it was days that went past…so _real_."

"Days?"

"Yeah…I got the papers and the test tube, I walked out into the woods around the golf course and burned 'em and you came back and…" Dean cleared his throat, "…we had fun with the girls…"

"You're seriously saying the demon had us and the twins…cavorting?" Sam demanded.

"Uh yeah…" Again Dean was grateful for the darkness hiding his flaming face and the sensation of being over-warm did not now have anything to do with the simple physics of swaddling bedclothes and body heat.

Thinking of how 'he and Sam' had 'spent the night with Kimber and Kerry' Dean knew that the almost orgiastic excess should have been his first clue that perhaps reality was rather too good to be true…some of the things they'd done _he'd_ never heard of despite an assiduous study of the Kama Sutra, never mind Sammy! And even as he was doing those things to Kimber and Kerry, and slyly to Sam, he had felt…

Distaste…as if they were just objects for his sexual gratification to be switched on, used and switched off again; in the dim recesses of his mind he had felt shamed and unclean, and a faint voice had urged that something was wrong, that Sam had never worn that look of deviant lust or exhibited that nihilistic cruelty, that while there was such a thing as eroticism, this was mere base perversion.

"It was about dawn and we were mostly asleep," Dean hurried on past the memories that weren't sensual, just disgusting, "and the phone rang…Pastor Jim told us that Dad had been killed in Minnesota."

Sam's breathing hitched and his arms tightened reflexively around Dean; the older man rubbed his hand on Sam's back in gentle, soothing concentric circles. Dad being killed, alone whilst Hunting, because they weren't there to help him, was their mutual second worst nightmare after the death of each other whilst Hunting because one had been too slow to take out the bad thing in time to save the other.

"It was bad…it was the guilt, for both of us. We'd been…cavorting," he borrowed Sam's euphemism, "Enjoying ourselves hedonistically whilst our father bled out alone in the dirt in friggin' Minnesota."

"Which was what the demon intended in the first place," Sam conceded.

It made sense. In order for the demon to make the catatonics commit suicide, it needed to create a flawlessly realistic and absolutely plausible delusion. Like a continuity error that broke your 'suspension of disbelief' and reminded that you were only watching a movie, anything jarringly artificial could fracture the spell sufficiently for the victim to break free. Dean knew that for all his tendency towards melancholy introspection and self-castigating grim moods Sam would not 'just' kill himself 'one day', but after, supposedly, several days of Dean witnessing Sam wracked with guilt over their having fun and frolicking with pretty girls when their father had needed them…

"Yeah…But then Pastor Jim said Dad didn't _want_ us to go to the funeral, he wanted us to finish the job here while Pastor Jim made all the arrangements. He'd put it in writing; Jim scanned the note and sent it to us as an email attachment."

"What was this demon, the Steven Spielberg of the paranormal?"

"It probably thought so."

"I bet Delusion-Me didn't take that well."

"Hardly," Dean obliquely did not deny the many issues that still existed between John Winchester and his younger son. "Over the next few days you just…shut down…you were so angry…you wouldn't eat, you wouldn't engage…and we were getting nowhere at all with this Hunt…one day I came back to the room before you and there was…this…p-p-pool of b-b-b blood –"

It was his turn to be held tightly against that wonderful, wonderful warm and alive body that was not dead, not dead thankyouthankyouthankyou.

Keeping it together, Dean managed to go on, "I opened the bathroom door and…you'd used my Glock to, you know – Max Miller – and you were sat there on the bathroom floor staring at the wall…your face was so calm and untouched…but the back of your head was gone…the rest you know."

"It wasn't me, it wasn't real…" For seconds, maybe minutes, Sam did nothing but rub his thumb gently back forth over Dean's hair, his rage burning in his veins at the thing that had tormented Dean so. "Dean…it will _never_ bereal."

Dean felt a pain in his chest as something squeezed his heart unbearably. Nobody ever _intended_ to kill themselves but then…"You can't promise that," the words wriggled past internal censors before he could corral them.

"Yes, I can," Sammy contradicted quietly but with adamantine certainty. He gave a soft sigh and when he spoke his voice was melancholy. "At Stanford, there was this buddy of mine…he was like you."

Dean had a bad feeling about where this anecdote was going but managed to feebly quip, "Well I guess there had to be one guy in the world _almost_ as gorgeous as me."

"He was a black dude from Haarlem…he was _short_ though," Sam added, and despite himself grinned when Dean gave that little huffing growl – thank you Lord, for these extra inches.

"Hah…Hah."

"I don't mean in looks…he was…_competent_. If your microwave went boom, or your computer suddenly disappeared 150,000 words of your dissertation or your car shuddered to a halt in the middle of nowhere near a town that looked way too much like the set of _Deliverance_, Frankie was your first call. He looked at any problem with a crisp, clear mind and came up with a workable strategy and never made a drama out of a crisis. He was…" _dependable and loyal and caring _…"also a depressive."

Dean didn't say anything, because sometimes there was nothing you could say. Sometimes the most important thing you could or would ever do in your life was to just shut up and _listen_.

"When he was twelve his family suffered some bereavements – he lost a sister at 23 to ovarian cancer and a few months later his nephew – his parents' first grandchild – was a SIDS fatality at fourteen months. His brother and sister-in-law had been trying for children for a year before they had the baby as well…"

"Must have been devastating for his family," Dean encouraged when Sam stopped and seemed to almost drift off into reverie.

"Yeah…it affected Frankie badly. As his teenage years went on he suffered more and more severe bouts of depression, but he never tried to get any help because he felt guilty. He was so angry with himself for _being_ depressed. He got a job as an orderly at a local hospital to help with some of the expenses at Stanford and it only made him feel more of…he said, 'a fraud and a charlatan'. He was able-bodied and reasonably healthy; he had a close, supportive family and good friends; he was far from hideous in looks and physique-wise his girlfriend definitely had no complaints; he was popular at his church and his lecturers and boss liked him."

"He felt bad about being depressed?"

Sam shifted restlessly in agitation, "It was almost self-flagellation. He used to beat himself up about feeling depressed because he felt that he 'shouldn't' have those feelings – what did_ he_ have to legitimately complain about when he pushed the wheelchairs of people who would never walk again, or who had terminal cancer, or who had broken their necks in a car crash and were paralysed, or who were sixteen and had had unprotected sex just once and end up HIV-positive or with Chlamydia or something?"

"Sometimes you can't help the way you feel," Dean said, softly.

"I know…he felt guilty that he was depressed, which just made him more depressed which made him angry with himself which made him feel depressed which made him feel guilty, and it was Catch 22 and Ouroboros, the snake eating its tail around and around."

"What happened?" Dean asked, though he already knew.

"We used to talk sometimes; his roommate was a party animal who was always in Palo Alto's nightclubs so I used to drop by most nights…I thought I was an outlet, a pressure valve for him, and he seemed to appreciate it…" Sam's voice had faint tremor to it. "Then – one Monday morning after the weekend I called straight in to his room and - he'd…hung himself from the ceiling fan."

"Oh, sweet Lord, Sammy," Dean didn't give a damn about Bambi or Disney or anything else as he tugged Sammy closer, moving onto his back and wrapping his arms as tight as he could around Sammy as his baby brother clung to him and cried.

Sam felt Dean's heart beating as he lay against his brother's chest and he knew that Dean could hear his choked explanation, so he did not move away.

"When a person…strangles…the blood gets stuck in their head…it can't drain into the body and – and – their f-face s-s-wells up and itsallpurpleandblackandgreen and- and-God, I'm sorry, I can't –"

"Shush, it's okay, it's okay..."

Swallowing hard, Sam tried again. "He'd…he was cold...and…rigour mortis had set in. He'd obviously done it Friday night; his roommate had gone on a weekend bender in Tijuana and they found him in some whorehouse backroom on the Monday night, oblivious – the little shit got automatic passes without breaking sweat 'cause he was a suicide's roommate. I thought - you know…Frankie there, all alone, all weekend, hanging from that fan…But that wasn't the worst of it. What really hurt, more than anything, was that he'd left these letters for people. He hadn't just thrown his belt up over the fan in a moment of despondency, he'd written his Will, made all the arrangements, the works."

"Did he leave you a letter?" Dean asked, hearing the bitterness and anger in Sammy's voice.

"Yes. We – his family – we all read each others', trying to understand. But he said the same thing to all of us. That we shouldn't blame ourselves and it wasn't our fault. _You did your best, all that you could_. His grandmother was an old Southern Black Baptist from Mississippi and lived through some of the worst racist abuse you can imagine. I always remember when _she_ read that in her letter she threw down the letter and declared that if Frankie was resurrected on the spot she'd take a birch switch to his butt."

Now, Dean understood. "He was basically saying that your best wasn't good enough."

"You're my big brother, and I know there's nothing you would not do for me. This life…what we do…it's hard and it's dangerous and I'm enough of a realist to know it's probably going to be short. And I know that sometimes no matter how hard you hold on, you're not strong enough, and no matter how fast you run, you're not fast enough…but I also know that whatever happens to me, it will _not _bebecause you did not try your best; I know that you will do anything and everything you are humanly capable of to protect me."

"Yes, I will." Dean vowed simply.

"And _because_ I know that, if you ever walk in on something like that for real, you'll know I was _murdered_ and you can start tearing the world apart for the bastard that killed me. Sometimes you can be the world's biggest pain in the ass, but I would never, never sit you down in a chair and tell you that no matter what you did, it wasn't good enough for me, that your best would never measure up, that no matter how long or how much you tried, you wouldn't be able to do or be what I needed. I know that Frankie never intended it, but that's how his letters came across to us, they made it seem like we could never have been good enough to help him." Sam took a controlling breath again, fighting the anger and grief. "If you try to kill yourself, whether you succeed or you fail is irrelevant, what you're metaphorically doing is telling the people who love you and care about you that they and nothing they do is good enough, which is cruel and an insult."

Sometimes Sammy could be stubborn and wilfully blind and self-centred, and sometimes he had the Wisdom of Solomon and depthless love and fierce, loyal devotion.

"So let's get some sleep, and tomorrow we'll toast those papers and that pebble, and then we're going to enjoy the rest of this week as an actual vacation, starting tomorrow night with the twins." Sam declared firmly, banishing the pain and the guilt and the grief – all would return soon enough, but for now they deserved peace.

"Works for me," Dean agreed gently. "Ah…although we're going to have swing by a drugstore tomorrow –"

"Taken care of; box of Trojan Ribbed in my jacket pocket." admitted Sam sheepishly.

"That's my boy…" Dean chuckled.

He felt Sam grin against his chest and within a minute, Sam's body had drained of tension and his breathing evened out. As it happened, Dean had lost any desire to move to the other bed.

Tomorrow they would be Sam and Dean the Hunters again, hiding love and fear and hope and despair one and all beneath sharp banter and sarcastic quips, but for now, for this night, each needed to know, to _feel_, that the other was warm and solid and alive still.

So Dean just lay on his back and let his baby brother use him as combination pillow, security blanket and cuddly toy, and as he closed his eyes and drifted off, he realised he felt more at peace and less afraid than he had done for years…

THE END

© 2006, Catherine D. Stewart

**Author's Note (1):** This story was…difficult…to write and on several occasions came within a Cat's Whisker of no longer existing as my finger hovered over the DELETE key. There are many valid reasons I could list for my indecision: too much angst, too depressing, too miserable, too schmaltzy, too melodramatic…too honest; in certain places this story was too autobiographical for ease.

I don't talk about suffering depression, but people seem to 'get to know'. I can always tell if they've 'heard'. Initially they get that First Panicked Look, the 'If I become friends with this woman she might be weeping and wailing down the phone all hours of the night.' (NB – Never going to happen; I am English, I _don't _emote, people. I do not cry; I don't know if I _could_ anymore). Then there's the Second Panicked Look, the, 'If I don't become friends with this woman she might take a swan dive off a motorway overpass.' (NB – Never going to happen, not least because I hate heights as much as "Dean" does rats – ditto, would also rather face the unspeakable nasty than stand on a chair).

However, I've experienced both sides of the situation. Before the events which triggered my depression aged 23, I knew a young woman who confided in me after fighting off a rape attempt. But the incident preyed on her mind. After being caught with a knife in her purse by someone too foolish to look beyond the actual possession into possible reasons for her always being 'armed', she became more distressed. She talked to me and I believed I was a useful sounding board and provided comfort – until she attempted to kill herself. There is a terrible feeling of failure and guilt than never entirely leaves. You ask, 'Is there anything more I could have done?' and even though your mind knows the answer is 'No' your heart never quite gets the message. Despite some dark times, I truly believe to attempt suicide, whether successfully or not, is an act of cruelty, that you are telling those people that love you that they will never be good enough to help you; I can only apologise if that offends.

But what I find truly terrible about this story is that my last 'deletion excuse' for this story – histrionics – was exactly the opposite; my research intended to support my self-castigation for being OTT showed instead this story if anything is too _realistic_.

On 1st March 2006, Jensen Ackles celebrated his 28th birthday; on 19th July 2006 Jared Padalecki will be 24 years old. In Britain and Ireland, the _leading_ cause of death for young men in their age bracket is…suicide. In America, it is the third leading cause of death amongst males aged 15-24. In 2004 over 3,000 continental American and 1,131 British young men between 15-35 years were killed in road traffic accidents, but over 3,500 American and 1,457 British men of that age killed themselves. In 2005 in Britain that figure had risen by 140 to 1,597 suicides and comparably in the USA. To put that in perspective, in Britain the number of young men in their twenties who died by abusing themselves with illegal drugs, etc., was less than 450 annually. In America, amongst young men aged 15-35, for every two homicides there were _three_ suicides; in the USA, it was the more affluent, socially higher-status white men aged 15-28 that were more likely to kill themselves by a factor of one third than any other ethnic group, followed by Amerindians and blacks. Between 1962-2000, 800,000 American men, a large proportion aged 15-35, committed suicide; between 1902-2000, the number of American military personnel killed in direct warfare or associated conditions was over 100,000 fewer at 661,926.

Both Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki seem very blessed. Not only does each have the Four 'H's – healthy, handsome, hunky, happy – but a close-knit family, supportive partner, good and enjoyable work, financial security. Looking at them, the idea that either one of them has ever in a 'place' of such pain and despair that they began thinking unsettling thoughts about daddy's old .45 (in America, 60 of male suicides shoot themselves) is ludicrous, yet their situation is typical – I repeat, _typical ­– _of the individual stories behind the above statistics.

We are not talking about alienated, socially parasitical hoodlums mugging pensioners for pennies and sticking a fatal needle in their veins in some reeking alley. The majority of these young men seemed to have everything going for them, like the 26-year-old who had the four 'H's and everything else, who'd just got a promotion and engaged to his girlfriend, who waved his family and siblings off on a day trip, called his girlfriend to tell her he loved her and hung himself in a bedroom. As a statistics-buff said to me, "'Going purely by the statistics, and with no other information to go on, the first thing I'd do is put Ackles & Padalecki on 24/7 suicide watch'". Statistically speaking, in Britain young men of their age group are more likely to be killed by self-destruction than bad driving, illegal drugs, drunkenness or diseases caught by sexual promiscuity.

Of course it's appalling, but on a personal level I find it tragic. Yes, my mid-twenties weren't fun, but…when I was in my late twenties some nice things happened, and some more in my thirties. I am blessed with great parents and a close and supportive family; my brother married a lovely woman; at 27, I was introduced to fan-fiction by someone who go me to write a story for her and discovered a release-valve that placed no pressure on me, unlike my other writing and genealogical work. At 28 I visited Vancouver and found it a delightful city, and one of those rare ones where a single female traveller can venture out at night (sensibly) and feel reasonably safe. There was even this great Italian place near Robson Street that did the best lasagne outside Italy.

And of course, jumping off the mortal coil before 2005 meant I would have missed the wonderfulness of the Triple J - Jared, Jenson and the yummy Jeffery Dean Morgan. A depressed mind is a self-absorbed mind, it thinks that there is never going to be any improvement…but if you hang on, if you ignore tomorrow and even today and concentrate on getting through the next 60 seconds, and the 60 seconds after that, you find that whole hours, entire days, have passed without the sky falling on your head and perhaps things are not quite as bad as they seemed.

If I could, I would impart this knowledge to the 1500 young men who kill themselves annually in Britain. In the five weeks it's taken me to write this and debate whether to delete the whole thing as whinging hand-wringing, 20 young men of Jared and Jenson's age have killed themselves _every week_. That 100 dead is matched by a 100+ more who have attempted but not managed to actually commit suicide. A few days ago, a colleague got home from work to discover that her husband had killed himself. That is partly why I have posted this story. Again I acknowledge that anyone who has lost a loved one to suicide may find my viewpoint distressing but I hope everyone takes this story in the spirit it was written.

**Author's Note (2):** I am aware that some of the religious aspects of this story may not be to everyone's taste, and I apologise if I seem to have been somewhat 'down' on the mental health professions. Yes, I _am _a Christian lay minister – and I have also studied Psychology at higher level, which I am afraid only confirmed my view that the psychological disciplines are _not_ a genuine science and have a long way to go to escape the charlatanism and often nonsensical theories of their 19th Century origins. Knowing people who suffer severe mental and emotional illnesses I willingly agree that mental health professionals and emotional health counsellors can and do perform useful and beneficial therapy in many instances, but there is nothing more dangerous to a person suffering great emotional and/or mental turmoil than being descended upon by some over-confident, or inexperienced, or blasé-old-dog practitioner who thinks he or she knows best or is winging it. There is, of course, also the basic irritation of only realising _after _you've forked out £-or-$200-per-session of your hard-earned cash to some Jesus-sandal-wearing Call-Me-Dave/Diane that he or she needs therapy more than you do.


End file.
